AMG 1: Tabula Rasa

by Davner

All Keiichi Morisato ever wanted was a new life. All the goddess Verthandi wanted was a new start. When their destinies cross, both their lives will be changed forever. A multi-author re-imagining of the original series.

FOREWORD: What you are about to read is a multi-part, multi-author reboot of the original Ah! My Goddess!, with each author posting their parts under their own name. This means that putting a story-alert on this chapter will not notify you of when the next chapter is published. The chapters will be collected in an Oh My Goddess community for ease of reading. The next chapter is "Esse Quam Videri" by Task Force.

Ah! My Goddess! Is the property of Kosuke Fujishima. The authors of this fic claim no ownership or profit from this work.

Special thanks go to the Reboot Team: WillZ, Task Force, Nena Camadera and Malmanous as well as my wife, Sethra.

AMG

Chapter 1

Tabula Rasa

Whenever the Almighty One spoke, whether it be in a dream or through a phone or even in person through the massive, granite obelisk through which he typically spoke, one could not help but be moved by the sound of his voice. Perhaps, Peorth thought, that was because of what they were. They were goddesses, created to serve His will. It was only natural to be enthralled by Him.

However, when one gauged his words through cold objectivity, even a goddess such as herself could find them to be less than desirable.

YOU ARE ALL FIRED.

It took a moment for the words to sink in, and the Creator of All Things gave the three of them no hint of a follow-up. No explanation, no instructions. Just a simple statement.

Fortunately, she was only a front-line supervisor, and as such it was not her place to seek further explanation. That job she left to the blonde goddess on her left. Freya was the director of the Goddess Help Line Project, a role she had placed several centuries of her life into. If anyone was going to poke the Lord of All Things Great and Small, it was her.

"My Lord," she began. "If that is your wish, then of course we obey, but... may I ask why you have come to this decision?"

SIMPLY PUT, I HAVE REVIEWED THE HELP LINE'S PROGRESS AND RESULTS AND HAVE COME AWAY DISAPPOINTED.

Peorth felt her heart plunge into her stomach. To disappoint the Almighty One was the greatest shame a goddess could endure, and she now was a part of that.

THE NUMBERS ARE NOT GOOD, the Almighty went on. THE DEMON REALM'S COMPARABLE PROGRAM HAS VASTLY OUTPERFORMED YOURS.

"That is hardly our fault," Freya replied defensively, forgetting for a moment, her place. "The Demon's Guaranteed Delivery program works because it's a trade. They can negotiate with their clients. Per your guidelines, we can only grant the wishes and hope the mortal receiving it makes the most of it."

AND HOW OFTEN DOES THAT HAPPEN?

Peorth saw Freya swallow nervously at the question. "Almost never," she admitted quietly.

IT WAS MY HOPE THAT SUCH A LIMITED BUT DIRECT INVOLVEMENT IN THE LIVES OF MY CHILDREN WOULD MAKE THEM BETTER, REDEEM THEM. THAT HAS NOT HAPPENED. IT'S TIME TO CONSIDER OTHER POSSIBILTIES.

"Such as?" Freya asked, the defeat evident in her voice.

THAT THEY CANNOT BE REDEEMED. THAT THE REASON HILD'S PROGRAMS WORK SO WELL IS BECAUSE THEY PREY UPON A SYSTEMIC FAULT IN THE HUMAN PROGRAM.

Peorth looked at her boss and saw that Freya would not argue this. It was difficult to. So many wishes had been offered to mortals who had been considered good men and women. There had been difficulties, yes. How do you offer someone anything they want, no strings attached, and expect them to not wish for anything they wanted? But to say that it meant mortals could not be redeemed went against what every goddess wanted to believe. The Almighty made man in his image but made the goddesses in theirs. If mortals could not be redeemed... then neither could they.

Without thinking, she stepped forward. "My Lord," she began. "May I speak?"

"Peorth, this is not..." Freya began.

YOU MAY SPEAK.

Suddenly given the spotlight, the brunette found she didn't really want it. But there was no turning back now that she had the Almighty's full attention.

"I believe the problem is not in the program itself," she said quickly. "It lies in our intentions."

The obelisk was silent for a moment. Freya was looking at her as if she were nuts.

GO ON.

Peorth swallowed and dived straight in. "We have sought out the best of mortality and offered them grace," she began. "But that was our mistake, choosing the best. We have attempted to reward the greatest mortals, but in doing so we only tempted them to fall. They had nowhere to go but down. Arthur, Midas, Achilles... They were all great mortals who would have lead great lives on their own. There was no need for a wish, and so the wish was wasted. Their wishes led to their doom, and their doom would not have been possible without it."

The Almighty said nothing.

Peorth fell to her knees before the obelisk. "My Lord, I know in my heart this program can work. Hild and her demons grant contracts to those who need. But the need those mortals need fulfilled are for a means to an evil end. We should not seek out the greatest and strongest. We should seek out the weakest and most wretched. They are the ones who will make the most of their wish."

The obelisk seemed to stare down at her, and she found herself looking away.

STATE YOUR PROPOSAL.

She couldn't believe the order. Quickly rising to her feet, she looked up at her God again. "Let us test this theory," she begged. "Let us grant the wish of a wretch. A wretch with a good soul," she quickly amended. "But a wretch nonetheless. Let us see if the weakest of them can become great."

The Almighty One was silent for several moments.

VERY WELL.

Peorth let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.

FREYA, SEE TO IT.

"Yes, My Lord!" the blonde said quickly. She turned to the brunette. "Peorth, you will take this task on yourself and.."

NO.

Peorth shook stars from her eyes, so shocked she was at the pronouncement.

Freya seemed confused herself. "My Lord?"

YOU WILL SEND VERTHANDI TO ACCOMPLISH THIS TASK.

Peorth nearly fell to her knees again, this time in disappointed shock, almost anger. She had grasped at straws and, to her surprise, found one that might save their program. But now...

Freya cleared her throat. "Not to second guess you, My Lord," she began respectfully. "But Verthandi is... is not the first goddess I would choose to carry out such a delicate assignment. She's... she's..."

SHE IS A GRANTER.

"Well... yes..."

THEN SHE MUST BE CAPABLE OF GRANTING A WISH, CORRECT?

Peorth couldn't help herself. "My Lord, you are sabotaging us," she said, swallowing back tears.

PERHAPS YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE BEING TREATED UNFAIRLY?

Freya swallowed. "No, My Lord. You have offered us this challenge, and we will accept it as is your will."

"Why Verthandi?" Peorth asked, ignoring Freya's pleading looks to shut up. She faced the obelisk. "You give us this one chance, and you ask us to entrust it to her. Why, My Lord? I will obey you as I always have, and I have never once felt the need to question you, but now I must! After everything she's done... why?"

YOU WISH TO OFFER THE WRETCHED REDEMPTION.

"Yes! Of course!" Peorth cried.

The obelisk was silent a moment longer before replying.

SO DO I.

888

As the two goddesses floated back to the office of the Goddess Help Line, Freya couldn't help but shake her head at her young subordinate.

"Challenging The Almighty One," Freya huffed. "Your mouth will one day get you in greater trouble than even your radical ideas will be able to free you from."

Peorth wouldn't look at her. She was busy sulking. "It worked, did it not? We now have a second chance to make this right." She muttered and addition a moment later. "For all the good it will do now."

Freya said nothing.

"Why Verthandi of all people?" Peorth went on. "Why dangle this opportunity before us and sabotage us with His next breath?"

"He challenges us, Peorth," Freya told her. "He tests us. That is His will. Verthandi will either rise to this challenge... or... she will not."

Peorth grunted.

"But," Freya went on, taking a breath. "There is nothing to be done for it now. We must work with what we are given. We should turn our attention to finding a suitable 'wretch.' How shall we find such a person?"

Peorth looked up at the night's sky, watching the stars go by. "There is no shortage of wretched human beings on Earth," she pointed out. "Just find an unlucky star and follow its light. You will find one."

"But a proper one..." Freya began.

The young goddess took a breath and studied the stars. These same stars shone on Earth as they did on Heaven. Yggdrasil could choose one, of course. The World Tree knew and saw all. It could enter all the factors of a person's life into its servers, sift through the numbers and come up with a mathematically sound choice.

But, to be fair, that hadn't worked out for them lately. Peorth had acted from her heart, taken a chance, and for the moment, it worked. Perhaps, in light of that, they should continue.

She pointed up at a particularly malignant spot of light. "That one," she said. "The second from the right. Find the mortal standing under its light. That's the one."

Freya followed her finger and looked back at the brunette. She sighed. Why not? The odds were against them to begin with.

Peorth dropped her finger and wondered what that mortal would be like. Whom, she wondered, were they placing their fates in?

888

The Vespa turned over on the first try, and the driver gave a start in amazement. "Holy crap, it works!"

Standing next to him on the sidewalk, Keiichi Morisato, age 18, pointed his wrench at the engine and grinned. "Told ya."

"Wow," the driver replied with a shake of his head. "I guess you Auto Club guys know what you're talking about after all. What do I owe you?"

Keiichi cringed at the question. The last words Tamiya had told him before driving off and leaving him here with the broken Vespa were, "Not a yen below thirty thousand." It was a ludicrous amount. No one in their right mind would pay it, which is why whenever the Auto Club did these little fund raisers they never gave an estimate before doing the work. The repair was minor, and Keiichi would have felt crappy about charging any more than five thousand... but then Tamiya would expect him to make up the difference.

Faced with that stark choice, Keiichi took a breath and replied. "Thirty thousand."

"Fuck you, thirty thousand," the driver told him straight out. "I'll give you three thousand."

Keiichi cursed the assholes who ran his club and shook his head. "Look, man, I know it's a shitty deal, but that's what I gotta charge you."

"Hmm," the driver responded with a nod. "Hey, you got a ride or are you walking?"

"Walking," Keiichi told him, hope rising in him. This guy was offering him a ride?

"Cool, that's just what I needed to know," the driver told him. A second later, the Vespa darted off down the street.

"Hey!" Keiichi yelled, running after him. "HEY!" He waved the wrench. "YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!"

Keiichi watched the Vespa turn a corner and disappear. "MotherFUCKER!" he cried in frustration.

He ran his fingers through his sweaty hair and growled. "Just another fucking day in Nekomi," he muttered.

Someone honked a horn behind him, and he turned, a rude retort on the tip of his tongue that was suddenly swallowed back when he saw the familiar red Ferrari parked on the corner. The driver was leaning toward the open passenger side window, giving him a concerned look.

"Kei? You all right?"

Keiichi shook his head and started for the sports car. "Some guy just dashed on me," Keiichi told him. "Can you believe that, Toshiyuki?"

"Why did he dash?" Toshiyuki Aoshima asked him with an arched eyebrow.

"I fixed his scooter and charged him thirty thousand yen," Keiichi copped.

Aoshima snorted. "No offense, Kei, but I'd run from a guy trying to rob me too." His friend smiled sympathetically. "You need a ride, man?"

Keiichi took a breath and nodded. "Yeah, if you don't mind."

"Hop in."

Keiichi opened the Ferrari's door and stepped inside, buckling his seatbelt as the sports car roared down the street.

"Thanks," Keiichi told him, exhausted by the day he'd had.

"No problem, Kei," Aoshima told him. "I can't believe that guy ran on you. You should have sabotaged his bike or something first."

"I'll do that next time," Keiichi growled. "Take the spark plugs out so he can't run until he pays me." He pulled a pack of smokes from his pocket and put one in his mouth.

"Hey," Aoshima jabbed. "You mind? Not in the car, okay?"

"Sorry," Keiichi sighed, taking the Lucky out from between his lips and replacing it. "Just pissed off, I guess. I need that money, and now Tamiya's going to come looking for it like it's my fault his fundraising plan sucks."

"Hey, um, on that note," Aoshima began. "Need to ask you something."

"What? You want a loan?" Keiichi asked incredulously.

Aoshima smiled, his eyes not leaving the street. "No, actually, it's a motorcycle question."

Keiichi blinked. "I didn't know you ride."

"I don't," the millionaire's son replied. "But my dad just won some antique in a card game, and he shipped it back here to get it rebuilt. A 1903 Indian Humpback. Said it was worth a lot. Is he right or did he get taken?"

"Shit, Toshiyuki, the bike might be worth more rusting out on blocks than this car," Keiichi told him.

"So... how much to fix it up?" he asked.

"A lot," Keiichi told him. "Parts will be a bitch to find, and you'll probably have to have most or all of them custom made..."

"I meant how much for you to do it?" Aoshima interrupted. "How much will you take?"

Keiichi studied his friend's face and bit his lip. He appreciated what Aoshima was doing, but...

He cleared his threat. "Look, um... I appreciate the offer... but I'm really busy, you know?"

Aoshima's expression changed, as if knowing he had been caught. "Man, it's not like that. You know about this stuff, and I'd rather pay you than some Honda engineer..."

Keiichi hated having these kinds of talks with Aoshima. The fact that his friend was rich, and he was dirt poor was thrown in his face quite often despite Aoshima's best efforts to not make it any sort of big deal. It was kind of hard to ignore, though, when he was eating ramen while his friend drove around in an Italian sports car that cost more than his parents' house.

"Toshiyuki, come on, man," Keiichi begged. "Thanks. Really, I mean that. You're my friend. I don't want you as my boss. Hell, I'd rather just do it for free on my off time than have you pay me to do it."

Sensing defeat, Aoshima nodded. After an uncomfortable pause, he grinned. "Would you do it for free?"

Keiichi laughed. "Fuck you, man!"

Aoshima laughed with him.

Firing back, Keiichi turned to him. "Maybe I'll do it in exchange for your cousin's phone number."

Aoshima shook his head. "Why would you want that?" he asked.

"Because she's hot," Keiichi told him.

"And a total bitch to anyone who doesn't make more than six figures," Aoshima finished for him. "Seriously, you're better off having nothing to do with her."

"Come on, Toshiyuki, miracles happen, right?"

"Not to you!" Aoshima gave him a look. "You got cheated by a guy on a Vespa!"

"So where's the harm?" Keiichi asked, looking out his window. "Best thing about hitting rock bottom is that you can't fall any further." His voice took on a wistful sadness as they passed a couple walking down the street arm-in-arm.

Aoshima eyed him for a moment before sighing. "Jeez, Keiichi, if I give you her number will you lighten up?" Keiichi turned back to him as he went on. "You're in college, man, you should be having a good time. Look, forget Sayoko and fuck the Auto Club, okay? Let's get suited up, go to the bars and find some nice girls looking for the next man to blame."

Keiichi gave it some thought. "Not tonight," he said. "I don't get paid until next week..."

"On me," Aoshima broke in.

"No," the other man told him. "Not tonight."

Aoshima turned his gaze back to the road and shook his head. "Okay, dude, have it your way. I'll just take the girl you would have gotten and have a threesome."

"Yeah, I didn't need to hear that," Keiichi told him.

They stopped at a light, and Aoshima took a pen and an old business card out of the glove box. "Okay, you really want the number, here it is." He scribbled his cousin's cell phone number on the card and handed it to him. "But when she shoots you down... and she will... just remember that's it's not personal, it's economic."

Keiichi took the card and pocketed it. "What's the worst that could happen?"

Aoshima gave him a look. "Have you met my cousin?"

888

Keiichi entered the dorm and found the rec-room completely empty, which was quite odd. Usually the place had at least a couple of guys hanging out, shooting the shit or playing ping pong.

"Hey!" he called. "Anyone home?"

As he scanned the room with his eyes, he found a piece of notebook paper sitting on the counter. Picking it up, he found his name at the top.

Morisato,

The rest of us went to a party. Clean the place up, okay?

Otaki

Keiichi's mouth hung open at the utter cheek of the note's message. They all went to a party, and rather than tell him where this party was so he could meet them there, they instead tell him to clean up?

He crumpled the note and shook his head in utter frustration.

"FUCK... ALL OF YOU!" he shouted at the ceiling.

Opening the community fridge, he took a beer and went upstairs to his room, slamming the door behind him and popping the top on the bottle.

He sat down on the tatami mat, shaking his head in anger.

"Fuck those guys," he muttered. "Fuck them.. Fuck them RIGHT IN THE ASS!" he screamed at the ceiling.

He should have gone with Aoshima. He should have put on that ugly-fucking suit he had in his closet and gone as Toshiyuki's poor, pathetic charity case. At least then he'd have a shot at one of the drunken uggos who didn't make Aoshima's cut.

Keiichi lay back on the tatami and looked up at the ceiling. College wasn't supposed to be like this. Nights like this was why he left Hokkaido in the first place. When the best social life a guy could hope for was hanging out in a mall parking lot at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night, listening to Limp Bizkit and pretending you were someone worth talking about, it was time to look for the first boat to anywhere else in the world. All his friends said Nekomi was a kicking college town, and it was... for everyone in the world but him.

There must be some kind of way out of here...

His hand absently reached into his pocket and found the business card with Sayoko's number on it. Pulling it out, he looked at the number and bit his lip.

Fuck it, he thought. Might as well go for a no-hitter.

He grabbed the ancient rotary phone sitting nearby and took a pull from the beer as he dialed.

"Hi, Sayoko san," he rehearsed as he dialed. "We met a couple of times at your cousin's place. I'm Keiichi. I was wondering maybe you'd like to..." Where did classy girls like to go? "... like... the museum or something? Maybe dinner? No, that sucks," he finished as the phone started to ring.

He heard a click as someone on the other end picked up. "Hi, Sayoko san?" he began from his impromptu script. "We met a couple of time..."

"Hello!" a musically feminine voice that was certainly not Sayoko's called back. "You've reached the Goddess Help Line! I'll be there momentarily to see to your needs."

Click.

Keiichi sat there, thoroughly pissed off now. "He gave me a phone sex number... Fucking Toshiyuki..."

He heard something behind him, like the snap and pop of an electrical discharge. He turned and found nothing there but the cheap mirror he got at the hundred-yen store. Turning away, he took another pull from the bottle and then turned back as the sound returned, this time catching sight of arcs of blue electricity running up and down the surface of the mirror.

"Shit!" he cried, dropping the beer and running to the small cabinet where a fire extinguisher that hadn't been inspected in twenty years was hiding. An electricity line running through the wall behind the mirror must be overloading or something. He pulled the pin on the extinguisher and turned to find the mirror glowing a bright blue.

Aiming at the mirror, he pulled the handle on the extinguisher, sending a concentrated blast of white mist at the mirror, but after only a second, it trailed off into nothing.

The arcs of electricity ran up and down the wall now, and Keiichi tossed the extinguisher aside and tried to come up with a new plan. Before he could turn and run for the window, however, the most amazing thing happened.

A face appeared in the mirror.

He blinked and shook his head, convinced he was hallucinating. The face, only the barest outline, seemed to find him and move toward him. He fell to his butt as a hand reached through the mirror at him.

Scrambling backward, he reached behind him and found his softball bat in the corner. Standing up, he raised the make-shift weapon menacingly as an arm followed the hand, and a head followed the arm. He stood there, awestruck, as the light from the mirror began to fade, and the colors and shapes of the form before him took on a more natural, if exotic appearance.

It was a woman, an incredibly beautiful woman, standing before him. A westerner, by her round, blue eyes and chestnut hair. She was arrayed in a flowing blue dress that seemed to sparkle as she moved.

She stood there, her eyes closed, and Keiichi heard her suddenly take a deep breath as if it were her first in the world. She let the air out slowly and opened her eyes. He raised the bat, but wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. Beat the shit out of a girl? Really? That was the plan here?

Her eyes found him, and she smiled. "Don't be frightened," she said, her voice resting against his ear like a comfortable pillow. "I won't harm you."

Keiichi swallowed nervously. "Who... how... You... Um..."

She took a step toward him, and he practically jumped out the window. "Woah! Hold it right there!" he cried. "Just stay right there, lady!"

"I'm here in answer to your call," she said, her very voice like the memory of a song. "You are Keiichi Morisato, right?"

"Maybe I am, and maybe I'm..."

"You are Keiichi Morisato," the woman said with conviction. "I can tell by your voice, the notes it strikes against the spirit." She smiled again and curtsied. "I am the Goddess Verthandi. Goddess Second Class, Second Category, Limited License, and I am your servant."

He swallowed again. "Look... I'm uh... I'm not sure what you think that call was, but... I um... Look, I mean... I don't really need a... um... you know... a girl like you..."

"You don't?" Verthandi asked quizzically.

"No," he said. "I'm um... I don't really need a ... um..." He gestured to her. "Well...And I couldn't really afford one like you... I mean... Well... If you're in Toshiyuki's rolodex then you must be really high class, and that's just out of my price range."

The goddess blinked at him.

"Not that I'm the kind of guy who would or anything!" Keiichi said quickly. "Not that there's anything wrong with what you do! I just... Um..."

"Morisato sama," the unearthly woman began, "You seem to be confused. Perhaps if I explain why I am here..."

Keiichi said nothing his knuckles still white around the softball bat's neck.

Verthandi waited a moment before gently prompting him. "May we sit?" she asked, gesturing at the tatami mat.

"Um... yeah, okay," Keiichi answered. He gestured to the seat on the opposite side of the table and sat down, hopping up again a moment later. "You want a beer?" he asked.

Her eyes darted side to side as if unsure what he just said. "I'm sorry," she said. "A what?"

"A beer?" he repeated, heading to the small fridge. "I think I got an old Diet Pepsi in here too somewhere if you want that."

"Oh... Yes, thank you," Verthandi answered, and Keiichi returned a moment later with a long-neck.

He sat down and watched the goddess gingerly try to twist the cap off the bottle.

"Here," he said, reaching over and taking it from her. He twisted the cap off and handed the bottle back. "So... um..." He licked his lips and struggled with the name mentally for a moment before giving it a try. "Bear...danudi?"

"Verthandi," she corrected.

"Beru..."

"Ver..." she said, enunciating the syllable.

"B...b... Berudandi?" he tried.

She smiled and gave up. This was only going to take a few minutes anyway. "'Belldandy' is close enough," she said. "Don't feel bad. A lot of Asians have trouble with it."

"Ah," he replied mock-sagely before taking a pull from his beer. "Okay... so... The mirror..."

"Yes," she replied almost sheepishly. "I know it was probably unexpected..."

"Just a little," he told her. He gave the woman a second look, away from the adrenaline that had started pumping through him when he thought he was dealing with an electrical fire. To say she was a foreigner was a vast understatement. The blue and white dress she wore seemed more appropriate on a cosplayer, and her face looked like something that should be on a magazine cover... preferably Playboy.

"So," he began again. "What can I do for you?"

Belldandy put the beer down and folded her hands in her lap, plastering on the kind of smile you usually see on saleswomen working the make-up counter at JC Penney. "Keiichi Morisato," she began formally. "I have been sent by The Almighty One to offer you Heaven's Grace. In plain language, I am here to grant you a single wish."

"What? Like a genie or something?" he asked, taking another drink. "Do I have to rub a lamp?"

I'd love to rub her lamps, he thought.

She cleared her throat more uncomfortably than the remark warranted. "No," she said with another official smile. "No conditions. Whatever you wish for will be made real by the power of the Almighty One immediately. But," she stressed, "You only get one wish. So it's very important that you give it serious contemplation."

"Huh," he noted, taking another swig. He felt the end of his nose start to get numb as his buzz finally started. "So... anything?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, sitting back and waiting for either his next question or his wish.

Keiichi snorted a laugh and shook his head before raising the bottle again and emptying. This was either the worst prank anyone had ever tried to pull on him or the lamest theme hooker 'scenario' he'd ever heard of. So what should he "wish for?"

A good lay would be nice, he thought. Maybe I owe Toshiyuki one after all.

The goddess cleared her throat again and shifted uncomfortably. His eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yes," she said quickly. "Just..."

"Just what?"

She bit her lip and squared her shoulders. "If it is your wish that I..." She paused uncomfortably. "... spend the night in your bed," she finally continued. "I would, of course, grant your wish and do my best to please you to your satisfaction."

He stared at her for a minute, trying to work through the sequence of events in his mind. She must have guessed. After all, she was probably working from a script, which pretty much nailed her as a call girl.

"However," she continued quickly. "I would ask that you think very hard about this, and use this wish as a chance to turn your life around."

His "expensive-cosplay-fantasy-scenario-whore" theory was starting to unravel. He'd never heard of a call girl lecturing a guy to turn his life around before.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I think I missed something."

"The Almighty One has chosen you to receive this gift," she told him forthrightly. "It should be used as a way to better yourself, not on a single night's passion."

He squinted, fully aware that his buzz was starting to dull his senses just a bit. "I'm sorry, are you a prostitute or not?" he finally asked.

She looked at him in disgust. "I... How..." Belldandy shook her head. "What did you think this was about?"

He shut his eyes and looked up at the ceiling. "Oh, man, don't I feel like the asshole."

"I admit," she began, folding her arms over her chest, almost in an effort to further conceal herself, "When I sensed your... more amorous thoughts... I was somewhat flattered, but..."

"Look," he began, trying hard not to laugh a little. "I'm sorry. Really. I mean... Well... It's been one of those days, you know?"

"All too well," she replied bitterly. "Now, then, Mr. Morisato, if we could get back to the task at hand?"

"Right!" he said, waving his beer bottle over his head. "The wish!"

"Yes," she agreed with a nod. "The wish."

I wish you'd sleep with me, he thought, followed by a snort of laughter.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he said. "Totally serious right now."

"Good," she sighed in relief. She shifted in her seat and tried again. "As I was saying, this wish can be used to take the unfortunate circumstances surrounding your life and changing them for the better. You need not live like... well... this," she finished by gesturing to their surroundings.

The boy frowned. "What's wrong with 'this?'" he asked.

Belldandy blinked. "Well... I mean..." She tried plastering on the fake smile and found it failing under his gaze. "What I mean is... the Almighty chose you specifically because of your... plights. Your life... your life is not all it could be. I mean..."

Great, he thought. First Toshiyuki, now God pities me.

He thought on it for a moment as the goddess tried to rally.

Naw, fuck that!

"Hey, I got it pretty good," he said defensively, poking his own chest in emphasis. "Got my own room, my steel horse downstairs, holding that solid 'C' average in my classes." He tried taking another swig and found the bottle empty. Slamming it down on the table hard enough to make the woman jump, he continued. "And this ain't even my only place!" he said. "I summer in the south of France. It's a little more expensive, but it's a nicer area and the men..." He pursed his lips. "Mmm mm! Ooh la la!"

Belldandy quickly rose to her feet and took a breath. "Your pardon, I beg!" she burst out. "I have insulted you."

"Me? Naw!" Keiichi replied, rising to his feet and going to the refrigerator in search of another beer. "I think it's awesome to find out that God feels sorry enough for me to..."

"That's not it!" she argued quickly.

"...to... to..." He stopped long enough to twist off the cap of the beer. "'To grant my wish,'" he said, making the quote signs with his fingers.

The goddess took a deep breath, realizing that she had to quickly regain control of the situation and pacify her client. "Mr. Morisato... please... don't misunderstand my purpose here. You are a good man, a proud man... But you have lived your life under the influence of an unlucky star. You have maintained your integrity and your pride and your honor in spite of that. This wish can remove that last barrier standing between you and the happiness you seek. I want nothing more than to see this wish make your life complete!"

He held a hand up. "You know what, that sounds great," he said. He turned away and started for the door, intent on showing her out. "And I really wish you could stay with me and make my life complete, but you know what..."

The young man turned and found the woman frozen where she stood, her eyes wide in what looked like terror.

"Hey!" he called, snapping his fingers in front of her face. "You okay?"

Her eyes seemed to find him, and he saw a faint blue glow deep in her pupils that seemed to grow in intensity by the second.

"Almighty best and greatest," she gasped at him suddenly. "You've doomed me!"

"Wh..."

Before he could finish the word, the light that had grown in her eyes erupted, sending a beam of light crashing through his ceiling and into the sky. Keiichi fell on his butt and watched, mesmerized as everything in his room, from his phone to his futon, slowly rose into the air around him, floating weightless. The light from Belldandy's eyes was a constant beam so intense that Keiichi had to avert his eyes.

The intensity of the energy in the room seemed to rise to a fever pitch, and then suddenly, Keiichi felt something shove violently against him, throwing him onto his back.

And then darkness. It took him a moment to realize that he was still conscious. The lights had all gone out, and now that he stopped to listen, he could hear water spraying somewhere down the hall as if from a fire hose or a...

"Shit! The pipes burst!"

He rose to his feet and searched the room, groping blinding through the darkness for some sign of the goddess.

"Belldandy?" he called. "Hey! You there?"

Keiichi felt his hand make contact with skin and realized he had found the woman's leg. He shook it quickly. "Hey! You okay?"

Nothing.

He knew he needed help. No power, burst pipes and now an injured woman. He groped for the phone and found it, putting the receiver to his ear. It was dead. He knew he had a flashlight somewhere and looked for that. It took a couple of minutes, but he finally found it in an old box under the sink. Pressing the button several times, however, got him nothing. It was like every piece of electronics in the place was burnt out.

"Great," he muttered. He threw open the curtains on his window to let in some moonlight. This let him find Belldandy again and check her out. She was still breathing, just out cold. He decided she could wait for the moment and opened his door. Half the fire sprinklers in the hallway were going off, rapidly filling the hallway with half an inch of water and growing.

Stumbling through the darkness and the water, he made it to the phone in the hallway and tried that one. Dead as well.

"Fuck! Shit! Piss!" he swore, biting his lip. The water main was in the basement. If he could shut off the water, that would be a start. After that, he would just have to go out and find a payphone and call the senpais and the maintenance guys. "It could be worse," he muttered.

He looked up as he heard the dormitory moan cryptically around him.

"It's worse," he sighed. He rushed to the basement door and pulled it open, feeling his way down the stairs. If he remembered right, the water main was straight ahead after you descended the stairs.

888

Belldandy opened her eyes and rolled over, her left cheek landing in the leading edge of a rapidly growing puddle. The water snapped her awake, and she sat up, shaking her head and blinking rapidly. She looked around and found herself alone in the dark dorm room, water leaking in from under the door.

"Mr. Morisato?" she called, rising to her feet. "Mr. Morisato! Where are you?" She stepped into the hallway and found herself in a shower, the water in the hallway up to her ankles. Looking right and left, she chose left and started for the break room. "Mr. Morisato?"

Suddenly, the rain stopped. She paused mid-step, wary of her surroundings. She heard footsteps climbing wooden stairs up ahead and craned her neck to try and see who it was.

"Mr. Morisato?" she asked. "Is that you?"

She watched as her client emerged from the doorway and put his hands on his hips, looking at the garbage can floating by his legs for a moment before taking a breath.

"Great," he muttered. "How do I explain this one?"

888

"So, explain this to me again," Toraichi Tamiya ordered as his massive boots squelched into the soaked carpet below him. Behind him, Nekomi Tech maintenance personnel were checking over the entire dormitory while the rest of the Auto Club milled around outside. Sitting on the break room counter, soaked to the bone and freezing, Keiichi sighed and shrugged.

"You got me, Senpai," he said. "There was a loud boom, the place shook, and the next thing I know the lights are out and it's like a water park in here."

"So you were just cleaning the place up and..." Tamiya began.

"I wasn't cleaning," Keiichi broke in coldly.

Standing near Tamiya, his friend and Auto Club vice president Hikozaemon Otaki smiled behind his perpetual sunglasses, casting a glance at the soaked foreign woman who was leaning miserably against the refrigerator. "So what were you doing?" he asked meaningfully.

"What the fuck you think I was doing?" Keiichi replied.

"I'm surprised, Morisato," Otaki told him. "Shocked."

"Yeah, well, we can't all be as huge a fan of cock as you, Senpai," Keiichi told him darkly. He shivered, growing more and more sick of this BS interrogation by the second.

Tamiya must have been surprised too. "Why's she with you?" he asked.

"Pity," Keiichi snarled back. "Are we done here or what? I want to see if there's anything dry in my place."

Before one of them could reply, the maintenance chief walked up to them, a clipboard held tightly in his hand. "I've never seen nothing like it," he said. "It's like a bomb went off in here or something. All your electrical is fried. You've got burst pipes all over the damn place, and the brick walls look like spider webs."

"I guess it'll take awhile to fix then, huh?" Otaki asked.

"Fix? Son, there ain't no fixing this place. She's coming down. You all need to leave. You shouldn't even be in here now."

Keiichi buried his face in his hands and took a breath.

Tamiya, to his credit, got right to the business of housing his club's members. "What about the guys here?" he asked. "They need a place to stay."

"Well, I went ahead and called the Dean, let him know what happened," the maintenance chief told him. "They're going to set up a makeshift living area in the gymnasium for you. You need to tell your guys to grab whatever they absolutely need and then stay out of here. They're going to send buses for you all."

"Okay," Tamiya rumbled. "Dai chan, can you let the guys know?"

"Yeah, sure," the punk-blond man replied, heading for the door.

Keiichi hopped down off the counter and started for his room to get a backpack of his stuff. He wasn't sleeping in a gym. He had a few bucks squirreled away, and after tonight he needed an actual bed, not an emergency cot sitting on a basketball court.

"Morisato," Tamiya rumbled. Keiichi stopped with a sigh and turned.

"Yeah?"

"Before you disappear, there's still a little matter of the money from that Vespa job we left you at," Tamiya told him quietly. Keiichi guessed this was his way of showing tact by not yelling it in front of his "girlfriend."

"Guy dashed on me, Senpai," he said. "There's no money."

Tamiya arched an eyebrow. "Hmmm," he remarked. "You know 'den... you're gonna have to cover it."

Keiichi had had it. He was officially done.

"Oh yeah?" he asked just as quietly. "How do you figure that?"

"The job was done with Auto Club resources..."

"I did the job with my tools and my time!" Keiichi growled, stepping up into the much larger man's face. "And seeing as I suddenly need that money to find a place to stay, it's a pretty good bet you're not getting a yen of it!"

"The Auto Club needs the money, Morisato," Tamiya growled. "You took a solemn oath..."

"You asked me to help raise money, and I said okay," Keiichi interrupted. "We didn't trade spit and piss in each other's sneakers on it! It's your own fucking fault the guy dashed in the first place! Thirty-fucking-thousand yen for at best a five-thousand yen job! What kind of fucking idiot thinks anyone would pay that?"

Tamiya balled his hand into a fist and held it, shaking, up near Keiichi's face. "You're lucky you're a good driver," he growled. "Or I'd be taking that money out of your ass."

"Fuck you!" Keiichi snarled in his face. "Without me you don't have a club!"

The younger man stormed off, leaving the hulk there to seethe. Belldandy, watching the exchange with frightened interest, took a moment to realize that Keiichi was leaving and dashed off after him. She found the young man in his room, stuffing a small bag full of clothes, some wet, a few items still dry.

"Where are we going?" she asked tentatively, unsure whether the answer would be a gentle explanation or another episode of the troubled young man flying off the handle.

"'We' aren't going anywhere," he said, walking past her and down the hall. "I am getting a motel room, a hot bath, and something to eat."

She rushed after him. "Wait!" she cried. "What about me?"

"What about you?" he asked, opening the door and stepping into the near-frigid air.

"I have to come with you!" she told him, doing her best to ignore the cold as she followed him.

"No, you don't," he said as they arrived at his BMW motorcycle. He started emptying the bag into the saddle bags on either side of the chasis.

"Yes, I do," she reiterated. "You made a wish."

"And I guess I screwed it up," he told her as he mounted the bike and strapped on his helmet. "So just go back to wherever you came from and tell them that, get it wiped off the books and call it a night."

Belldandy looked at him in horrified shock. "I can't do that! You made a wish!"

"When I was six, I wished for a Skittles-shitting unicorn," he told her. "It didn't come true. So it really can't be that important." He started the bike and revved the engine.

Belldandy stepped in front of it. "And if you had made that wish an hour ago, we wouldn't have this problem! But instead you wished for me to stay with you, and now I have to! You must let me come with you!"

"Look, I release you or whatever I have to say to get you to leave me alone, okay?" he said with a wave of his hands as if he was casting a spell. "It was a goof, Belldandy. I don't want grace, I don't want a wish, and I don't want you to stay with me. All I want to do is get inside somewhere and get warm."

"You think I want to stay here?" she asked him incredulously. "I'm just supposed to come here, grant a wish and go home! No one's ever wished for something so...so... brazen before! But it's done now, and until I get it sorted out, I can't leave your side!"

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because you wished it!" she all but screamed at him in frustration.

He watched as she stood there and rubbed her temples, shivering in the cold. "Look," he said more gently. "You seem like an okay woman, but it was a mistake. You want to go home. I want to go to a motel. Let's shake hands, go our separate ways and forget about it, okay?"

Belldandy took a deep breath. She never had to worry about this kind of stuff when she was granting wishes to kings and heroes. They understood they were entitled to grace. With this Morisato it was like she had to shove it down his throat. If her mission weren't so important, not only to the Goddess Help Line but to her personally, she'd let him ride off.

But if she did that, the mission would fail. The Almighty would shutter the program.

And she'd never have her clean slate.

"We can't," she finally said.

He bit the inside of his cheek. Something about the way she said that...

"Why not?" he asked.

Belldandy took another breath and said, "The Ultimate Force."

Keiichi looked at her for a moment. "The Ultimate Force?"

"The Ultimate Force."

"What's the Ultimate Force?"

She looked down at him, and seeing that she finally had his attention, she began speaking. "Every wish is a binding contract between the wisher and the universe," she explained. "The Ultimate Force enforces that. If you and I just go our separate ways, the Ultimate Force would see it as a breach of contract and enforce the terms of the wish... or punish those who breached the contract."

He leaned forward on his handlebars. "Are you saying... that if I don't let you grant this wish... something bad is going to happen to you?"

She squared her shoulders. "Yes," she breathed. She swallowed and looked him in the eye with her own blue orbs. "Please," she whispered. "Let me come with you."

Keiichi thought about it for several moments. He wasn't exactly crazy about this girl, but he didn't like the idea of the universe "punishing" her... especially when what happened was kind of his fault.

He let out a breath and chucked a thumb over his shoulder, inviting her to get on the bike behind him.

Belldandy didn't wait for him to change his mind. She circled around and hiked up her skirt, carefully climbing on the motorcycle and trying to keep the hem of her dress from finding any moving parts.

As she climbed aboard, Keiichi shook his head and started muttering. "Son of a bitch... son of a bitch..."

"Okay," she said quickly, taking hold of his shoulders. "I think I'm ready. It's like a horse, right?"

"Son of a goddamn bitch..."

888

On short notice, with the money he had, he didn't have enough for even a shitty motel room. But that was okay, because he did have enough for two capsules at the kapuseru motel just down the road from NIT. The owner had been a forward-thinking old coot who built his little pod-prison next door to a bathhouse, giving it (kinda) all the comforts of home.

If home was a spaceship to the moon.

Keiichi sneezed as he climbed off the Beemer and went inside to get a couple of capsules for them. Belldandy stood outside for a moment, searching the area with her eyes and taking in the new sights with a sense of uneasy wonder. She shivered as a gust of wind blew over her and followed Keiichi inside. She found him just as he was stepping away from the front desk.

"Okay," he said, handing her a little key. "You're in twenty-two. I'm in twenty-three right next to you."

She took the key and nodded. "Thank you."

His eyes traveled up and down her body for a second, seeing how wet and cold she looked. "You have anything else to wear?" he asked.

"No," she said simply. "But that is all right. I will be fine."

"I got some sweats you can wear," he told her. "In the bags. I'll get them, and then I'm going next door for a hot bath. Is that okay, or do we literally have to be right next to each other?"

She blinked for a moment in confusion then started as she remembered her earlier fib. "Oh!" she said. "No, that's okay. We just can't be separated for long," she said. "And I really should call my office and see about... rectifying this matter."

"Okay," he said, turning for the front door. "I'll be back in a minute." He pointed to a pair of double-doors at the end of the hall. "That way."

She turned and started down the hall, looking forward to a room to herself where she could lay on the bed and try to figure out what to do next. Walking through the double-doors, she came to a confused stop and furrowed her eyebrows. The wall was lined with rows of small doors, almost like a morgue. No elevator, no rooms, just little hatches. She walked down the line and saw that the hatches had little windows, some of which were hidden by a drawn curtain. One, however, wasn't and she peered inside to find a small pad just large enough for a single person.

"It's a tomb," she whispered. She shivered and turned as Keiichi entered the room behind her, the saddle bags over his shoulder.

"Find yours?" he asked.

"Um... no," she admitted. She swallowed and cleared her throat. "I don't suppose there are any... real beds?" she asked.

"Do you have any real money?" he asked.

"No," she confessed quietly.

"Then there are no real beds," he said, throwing the saddle bags onto a cheap folding table nearby. He tossed a pair of sweats to her and pointed toward the opposite end of the room. "There's a changing area down there. I'm heading next door."

"Is there a phone?" she asked quickly.

"There's a payphone at the front desk," he said. He checked his pockets and came up with enough change for a phone call.

He regarded her for several moments before asking, "You okay?"

"Yes," she replied. "It's just much more than I anticipated."

"Yeah, well, the sooner we get this sorted out the sooner you can go home, right?" he asked.

She nodded. "Right."

"Okay, well, I'll be back in about twenty minutes," he told her. "If you do leave, don't leave my shit out on the table like this. Believe it or not there are people who will steal your dirty boxers if you leave them out."

"I understand," she said regally.

"Okay," he said. "Back in twenty." Grabbing a change of clothes from the saddle bag, he turned and left through the double doors, leaving Belldandy alone.

The goddess took the ash-grey sweatshirt and black sweat pants and found the changing area. Pulling the dirty curtain closed, she stripped down and changed, hoping there would be a way to launder her dress at some point in the near future.

She placed her hand on the curtain and was about to open it when she froze. Letting it go again, she sat down and took a breath. She needed a moment.

How could this be happening? Never in all her years of granting had she ever heard of a goddess becoming part of a wish. It wasn't supposed to happen.

And yet it seemingly had.

It was a goddess's role to serve, but the thought of living here on Earth with that... savage... filled her with dread. She tried to console herself with the thought that he was mortal... and apparently a drinker and a smoker... which meant that he was only going to live another what? Fifty years?

And that wish! She found herself grinding her teeth. What did it even mean?

"Stay with me and make my life complete..."

How was she supposed to do that? It was an impossible wish! No one person's life could be complete anymore than a person could count to infinity! It was an impossibility that she had now been charged with completing!

This was above her. She needed guidance on how to proceed. Fingering the change Keiichi had given her, she gathered up her things and left the changing room, heading for the reception area and the ugly, dusty pay phone that sat at one end.

Pushing the change into the machine, she looked around the room, searching for Keiichi, before dialing the number to the Help Line. After two rings, someone picked up, and she immediately started rethinking the idea of calling.

"Help Line, this is Peorth," she heard.

Belldandy remembered her manners before beginning. "Ms. Peorth," she said. "It's Verthandi."

"Verthandi," Peorth repeated thoughtfully. "We expected you back hours ago. What's happened? Yggdrasil shows that you granted a wish to Monsieur Morisato, but instead of 'complete' or 'incomplete,' it shows 'in progress.' What can you tell me?"

"His wish was somewhat... unorthodox," Belldandy explained. "He wished for me to stay and make his life complete."

There was silence on the other end of the phone. "I see," Peorth finally replied. "Which explains, of course, why you're overdue. The moment you leave that boy's side..."

"The wish will be considered incomplete," Belldandy finished. "You have to fix this, reset the wish."

"Yggdrasil isn't a personal computer," Peorth told her pointedly. "You don't just reset it whenever you have a problem. Monsieur Morisato made a wish, and it is our duty to see that his wish is carried out."

Belldandy's mouth dropped. "Are you telling me you're going to leave me down here?" she cried.

The goddess could almost see Peorth's poisoned-sugar smile on the other end. Her supervisor had never liked her. Not since...

"Oui," Peorth interrupted the thought. "He made a wish. You were sent to grant it."

"His wish is a farce!" Belldandy hissed. "An off-the-cuff remark he wasn't even aware he was making! He didn't mean it!"

"Yggdrasil thinks he meant it," Peorth told her with no small amount of amusement.

Belldandy's breath quickened as it truly dawned her that she was being abandoned down here. "You can't do this! I demand..."

"You watch your tone!" Peorth hissed, cutting her off before she could finish her sentence. "And remember who you're talking to. You were entrusted with this task by The Almighty One himself over my most strenuous objections, so I must admit it would give me a small thrill to see you fail at it."

Belldandy bit her lip in anger as her boss continued.

"But that thrill is not worth the price the rest of us and humanity would pay," Peorth spat at her. "I want this mission to succeed... and you want rid of that cloud that's been hanging over your head for a millennium. That means you get your act together and finish the job."

"You can't do this," Belldandy told her in a more respectful tone. "The wish, as stated, could mean anything. What if he wants me to... submit myself to him?"

"I never took you for a particularly vain person, Verthandi," Peorth noted. "Though I see now from your past behavior coupled with this conversation I probably should have." Belldandy could actually hear the laughter in the undertone of the woman's voice. "But in answer to your question, I'll say this: You are a goddess in Heaven's service sent to grant the most heartfelt wishes of mortals. If one of those foolish mortals decides he is so smitten with you that he would throw away his wish to bed you, then by The Almighty One's beard, I expect you to put a bag over his head, spread your legs and think of Heaven."

Belldandy bit her lip hard to keep from answering in the way she most wanted to at that very moment.

"Are we clear?" Peorth asked.

"Yes," Belldandy whispered.

"'Yes,' what?"

The goddess took a deep breath. "Yes, Ma'am. I understand."

"Bon," Peorth replied. "If you need any assistance or support, you have our number. The Help Line will do whatever we can to make sure that Monsieur Morisato's wish is granted to his absolute satisfaction... won't we?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Belldandy said woodenly.

"Exquis. Now, I know you're probably very very busy with your new posting," the supervisor said. "So I won't take any more of your time. Au revoir!"

Before Belldandy could reply, the line went dead. She replaced the receiver on the cradle gently and squeezed her hands into fists.

"That boy has doomed me," she whispered to herself.

888

Keiichi leaned back in the bath and sighed as he gazed at the dirty ceiling above him. He had been running on anger and adrenaline since the guy on the Vespa had dashed on him earlier, and now, finally with a chance to rest and collect his thoughts, the impact of his situation finally crashed on him.

He was fucked.

Hard.

Over and out.

His dorm room was destroyed, and most of his stuff was probably soaked and dead. That would include the cheap, second-hand laptop he'd been using to write his papers. Bye-bye, term paper! Thanks for playing! All his clothes were soaked. Everything he owned would have water damage.

And he needed a place to stay.

And he had told the Auto Club president and biggest motherfucker on campus to go screw himself.

And he now had a new albatross in the form of a well-to-do but otherwise dimwitted woman tied around his neck.

The fact that she was a goddess didn't seem to faze him, and he found that odd from a purely objective standpoint. She was a goddess, a kami, a being from a world far greater than this one. Shouldn't her sudden appearance and blunt intrusion into his life panic him?

Keiichi wasn't a very religious guy. He had given up on the idea of an all-powerful god dispensing justice from on-high the day his father had given his sister a black eye when he was ten. It's hard to tell a young boy that there was someone looking out for him when that kind of stuff was going on. The doubt in something greater than himself was cemented the day four years later when he taught his father a lesson that undoubtedly rattled the older man.

Simply put, a man can whale on a little girl with impunity, but an enraged fifteen-year-old boy who feels he has nothing to lose can do a pretty good job whaling on that older man the moment he tries.

His father hadn't raised a hand to him or his sister since, and Keiichi learned for himself a valuable lesson.

God wasn't going to help you. If you want to improve your lot in life, you're going to have to do it yourself.

So perhaps it wasn't that the presence of the goddess shocked him. Maybe it was a meeting he had been waiting for, an opportunity to finally tell God, "See? I didn't need you."

And now that that moment has come, the reply was, "Yes, you did. Yes, you do. But it's okay, because I'm going to make it all better for you."

Technically speaking, Belldandy wasn't that God, and it was wrong to resent her for it, but what else did he have? Perhaps that's why he was willing to let her hang around until this was sorted out. It wasn't her fault. She was just the messenger.

But what to do now was the question. If the dorm room was coming down, that meant the university had to house him. He paid the room and board fee, after all. And since they didn't appear to have any room anywhere else, that meant someone owed him money...

That would be step one.

Step two would be finding a new place to live. He wasn't sure how long it would take Belldandy to get off the hook on this wish thing, but he had to assume for the time being that they would need a place big enough for two.

On what he makes.

He took another breath and rose from the bath. These problems couldn't be wished away. It was time to get back to it.

888

Belldandy took a deep breath as she stared up at the ceiling that hung barely a foot in front of her face. She folded her arms over her chest and tried to relax, to find rest, but this capsule, this casket was so... eerie.

She could hear the mortal boy snoring in the pod next to hers and wondered if it was something she was going to have to get used to. The goddess knew it was only a matter of time before that savage would realize he could force her to... She shook her head. She didn't want to think about it. What was at present was bad enough.

The goddess closed her eyes and tried to think of a time when she was content, when she was warm and safe.

As was usually the case when she wanted to feel warm again, her thoughts went to him, and the time they spent together. She tried to imagine him there, holding her, stroking her hair and telling her that everything would turn out all right in the end.

It would be okay... eventually.

She told herself this over and over again while simultaneously cursing Peorth and Freya. They engineered this somehow. After all, she knew it was Peorth who had chosen the client. All that talk about a new start and a clean slate... She should have known it was all a set-up. They never liked the idea of having to work with her, not after...

The goddess sighed. Would she really pay for that... indiscretion... for the rest of eternity?

At least for fifty years of it the way things were progressing.

She didn't like it here... It was cold, it was depressing, and the very thought of spending a significant portion of her life here filled her with dread.

Not that home was much better, but at least it was Heaven...

888

She awoke to someone's hand slapping against the plexiglass of her capsule's window, startling her enough to shoot upright and banging her head against the ceiling of her little casket.

"Ow!" she cried, rubbing her head and wincing in pain. She turned with a grimace and found Keiichi standing outside. Opening the capsule, she took a breath and collected herself. "Yes?" she asked.

"You awake?" he asked.

"Obviously," she sighed. "How may I be of service to you, Mr. Morisato?" she asked formally.

"We need to go to the school and see about getting some rent money," he told her. "Come on. Get dressed. There's donuts in the lobby."

She took a breath and sighed. "Wonderful. May I have a few moments to collect myself?"

"Sure," he said. "Better hurry, though. Those donuts aren't gonna last."

The goddess watched as the boy turned away and started for the lobby. Collapsing back onto the small pad, she looked up at the ceiling and shook her head.

888

She didn't have to wait for very long. Despite his promise that "this might take awhile," Keiichi returned to the picnic table near the Student Housing Office in only twenty minutes. So lost she was in her own thoughts, that she almost didn't notice when he came back and took the seat opposite of her, tossing a newspaper down on the table between them.

"That was easier than I thought," he told her. "Turns out the Dean already ordered Housing to give everyone their money back so they can find new places. That should make things a little easier. All we've gotta do is find a place, then swing by and pick up my stuff from the dorm... whatever still works, anyway."

Belldandy bit her lip, sensing the rebuke in his tone. "I am sorry," she told him quietly. "I have no control over the... side-effects... of a granting. It's never been an issue before."

He took a breath and, seeing her look of honest regret, smiled gently. Keiichi knew they had gotten off on the wrong foot, but that didn't mean it had to be a habit, right? It was time to cut her some slack.

"Well," he said, "You might want to tell your friends that it's never been a problem before because you've never granted a wish around a lot of complex electronics, right?"

Belldandy blinked, regarding him carefully as he opened the newspaper. "That's... true," she said. "But why..."

"The lights," he told her. "Along with the other electronics in the dorm all went dead before the pipes burst, remember? It sounds to me like whatever happens when you grant a wish goes off, it releases an electromagnetic pulse that fries everything with an electronic circuit for a radius of... oh... about the size of a dormitory."

The goddess shifted in her seat. "The last time a wish was granted was several years ago," she told him. She bit her lip in thought. It was actually a good bit of information to pass along. Granting wishes wasn't about inconveniencing people the way it seemingly had Keiichi and his friends. "Thank you," she told him.

He shrugged as he pulled the rental ads from the paper and left the rest of it to sit on the table. The boy started thumbing through them as Belldandy sat there, unsure of what to do with herself. She realized she shouldn't push things too far. After all, her entire presence at his side at that very moment was based on a lie, and not a very good one to boot. Still, there must be some way to at least assist in getting them permanent lodging...

Over here...

She blinked and turned her head.

Here. Down here.

She glanced down at the rest of the newspaper Keiichi had discarded. Leaning down, she listened very carefully.

Give me to him... It's in here.

The goddess slowly reached out and found one of the abandoned sections, the employment ads, and looked at it thoughtfully.

Trust me. It's in here...

Looking up, she held the newsprint to the college student and watched as he glanced up, first at the paper, then at her.

"Yeah?" he asked stupidly.

"You'll find what we need in here," she stated with assurance.

"That's the want ads," he told her, looking back down at the rentals. "We need an apartment, not jobs."

She continued to hold out the paper as he began to pointedly ignore her.

"Mr. Morisato," she began. "I understan..."

"Can you stop that?" he asked.

"Stop what?" she asked, becoming rather irritated. "I'm not going to sit quietly like a good little puppy when I can..."

"No, I mean the 'Mr. Morisato' thing," he said pointedly. "I'm not 'Mr. Morisato,' I'm 'Keiichi.'" He turned the page of the paper without reading it. "Or 'Kei.' Or 'hey you.' Or something... I mean we're stuck with each other. There's no reason to be so damn formal. I don't call you 'Madame Belldandy.'"

The goddess squared her shoulders. "I was only being polite."

"Yeah, well, I don't know if you've guessed this yet or not, but me and the guys I hang around with aren't exactly the cream of high society. Well... I guess Toshiyuki is, but I don't think he counts."

"Very well," she said with a nod, acknowledging his point. "Keiichi..." She held up the paper again. "Look in here."

He gave her another look. "I told you, apartment first."

"I understand that," she said. "Please look in here."

"Belldandy..."

"Take you nothing on faith?" she snapped, her irritation at being constantly questioned causing her eyes to light in anger. "In centuries long dead and buried a suggestion from a goddess would reorder entire societies, but you cannot summon enough faith to simply open a page and read what's there? Not for the briefest of moments?"

"Fine," he bit out, snatching the paper from her and opening it theatrically. "We'll check the want ads first."

"Thank you," she breathed as if ending some heroic deed. "I would hope you would learn to trust me, Mr. M... Keiichi," she corrected. "If we are to... to be together... it's something we should both learn to..." She bit her lip. "... embrace."

"Uh huh," he said, noncommittally. "You wanna be a pin monkey? The bowling alley is looking for a pin monkey."

The wrathful light in her eyes returned as she realized she was being mocked again. Keiichi didn't seem to notice.

"Okay, here's one," he said. "The local riding club needs shit-shovellers. You wanna go shovel shit out of stables? Something tells me you're not the hands-on type..."

"Of all the mortals that walk the earth, how is that you, of all people, were chosen for a wish?" she hissed.

He ignored her, his eyebrows furrowing in thought. "Wanted: Mechanically-inclined individual to restore Buddhist temple in Tarikhongen. Pay low, but living quarters provided on site." He lowered the paper and blinked. "Son of a bitch."

Belldandy folded her arms over her chest and tapped her index finger against her arm, obviously waiting for an apology.

Keiichi rolled his eyes and stood up. "Come on. Let's check it out."

"Mr... Keiichi," she began, stopping him in his tracks. He turned back and found her looking self-consciously at him. "If it is beyond you to acknowledge I was right," she began formally. "Would it be possible for you to at least... provide me with a little money so that I can get some proper clothes before we go?"

He bit his lip. True, if this job panned out he wouldn't have to spend all the money he had on rent... Then again if it didn't...

Still... she had been right... And she looked like a mess in his old work-out sweats...

Have a little faith, a little voice in his head suggested.

Oh, shut the fuck up, he told it.

He took a breath and nodded. "Yeah. We'll swing buy the store and get you something."

She smiled at him, and it was different than the other smiles she had given him before, the official smiles, the ones dictated by protocol or by need. It was a genuine smile, and somehow it seemed to light the day.

"Thank you, Keiichi," she said.

He held up the want ads and smiled back. "Thank you." He started for the bike again. "Come on. Before one of the senpais see the same ad."

888

Keiichi climbed off the bike, now parked on the side of the road that only led further and further away from town, and looked up at the hill that was barely perceptible through the trees.

"This is the place," Keiichi stated as if trying to convince himself of the fact. Looking up and down the road that ran to either side of him, he scratched his head before pulling a cigarette from his pocket and lighting up. "I don't get it," he mumbled around the cancer stick.

"Keiichi," Belldandy spoke up, pointing at a large tree that stood nearest to the road. Keiichi had to admit that paying for some new clothes for her was a good idea. The simple blue skirt and white blouse might have looked plain jane on anyone else, but on Belldandy they elevated the goddess to a very respectable seven. "I think I see the beginning of a path there."

The college student circled around the tree and found a dirt path interspersed with old wood steps rising up the hill. He took a drag and nodded. "Okay," he said. "Guess this is it."

He started up the path, and Belldandy followed him, walking barely a step behind him and to his right. Keiichi's foot came to rest on a plank, and he paused suddenly as he heard it creak and splinter. "Careful," he warned her.

At her nod, they started cautiously up the hill again. A tad unnerved by the silence, Keiichi found himself looking back at his new companion.

"So," he began, trying to make small talk. "What's Heaven like?"

Belldandy looked at him, suddenly thrown by the casual conversation. "It's..." She struggled to find a way to explain it. "It's hard to say," she said. "Heaven is all things to all people. It's not like here."

"What do you mean?" he asked, carefully stepping over a rotting board.

"It's just... it's everything... and it's nothing."

Keiichi rolled his eyes, sensing that he wasn't going to get a real answer from the goddess. "Okay," he finally said. "Let me ask you something else. Why me?"

"Why you?"

"Yeah," he told her, stopping to face her. "Someone must have picked me for that wish, right?" He started up the hill again. "I mean why me and not some starving kid in the Congo or something?"

The question made Belldandy pause. "To be brutally honest," she began, "I don't quite know. I meant what I said earlier that it was a chance to turn your life around, but I can't say for certain why it was you who was chosen. Again... to be honest... it was not even the Almighty One who chose you."

"I thought you said God grants these wishes," he said.

"He does," Belldandy assured him. "But normally who receives that wish is calculated by Yggdrasil."

"Yggdrasil?"

"The World Tree," she elaborated, stepping over a root that had grown across the path. "Yggdrasil is a great tree, a living computer that literally runs the world. It takes all the factors in a person's life and calculates who should receive a wish."

"So this super computer used some equation to pick me?" Keiichi asked.

Belldandy paused midstep. "Actually..."

"Christ on his cross," Keiichi mumbled. "So it wasn't God, and it wasn't this computer? So who was it? How did, out of the six billion people in the world, did I get this wish? Did.. did you pick me?" he asked with an arched eyebrow.

The goddess's mouth opened and closed. "Well... no. The person most directly responsible for you receiving this wish is another goddess named Peorth."

He waited for her to say more. "And I mean what to her?"

"Nothing as far as I know," Belldandy admitted. "But she chose the star that Yggdrasil followed to get to you." She shrugged. "As far as I know... it was random."

"Great," he whispered. "I won the fucking cosmic lottery."

"In a way you did," Belldandy told him seriously. "Normally wishes go to... others."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

Belldandy stopped and waited for him to turn and face her so she could explain. "A wish," she began, "is a very precious thing, Keiichi. When the Goddess Help Line program began, it was thought that wishes should be granted to those mortals who have reached the pinnacle of their lives, those who have accomplished world-changing endeavors." She bit her lip. "It has not... always... been successful."

"How so?" he asked.

"It was thought," Belldandy went on, "that by granting a wish to the greatest of your people, we could help elevate mortal man even higher. After all, who but the greatest of you would know how best to use a wish? However, when we offered a wish to the best of you... it brought out the worst."

She saw the look on his face and knew she wasn't being clear. "For instance," she began again. "We once granted a wish to a great king in England, a man who banished evil and began a kingdom based on peace and prosperity. We thought he would wish for peace to last... Instead... he wished for a woman... who was not his wife..."

Keiichi's lips started to curl up in a smile.

"Another man who was offered a wish took your people into space and to Luna," Belldandy said. "Surely, we believed he would wish for your people to step out into the stars." Her face fell. "He... wished for a woman... a movie star... who, again, was not his wife..."

Keiichi started to laugh.

"It's really not funny," Belldandy scolded him. "These were precious opportunities for all of your peoples."

"So you gave wishes to the rich and famous and were actually shocked that they wished for ass instead of the good of humanity," Keiichi concluded. "You goddesses don't actually spend a lot of time down here, do you?"

"No," Belldandy admitted. "In hindsight it would appear that we erred."

Keiichi nodded. "So you decided to give it to some greasemonkey and see if things would be different?" he asked. At her nod, he laughed again. "Wow," he said. "That's something else." He shook his head and his voice turned serious again. "I guess you must be pretty disappointed."

"In fairness," Belldandy said quietly, "At least the wish you stated was to help complete your life." She smiled, that rare but beautiful smile she kept hidden. "You didn't wish for, as you said... 'ass.'"

Keiichi cleared his throat. "Yeah, well... If I hadn't been half drunk and actually believed you were real," he began, "I would have."

As he said this, they climbed the last step and walked into a clearing in the small forest. What met them looked like the set of a horror film. Whatever paint had covered the single-story building had long ago peeled away, leaving a grayish-brown block of weather-worn lumber in its stead. Part of a well still remained in front of the temple, but part of it had collapsed inward, and the grounds that had once been neatly trimmed were overgrown with weeds and brush.

"Hello!"

They both turned to the sound of the call and found a much older man in a priest's black and white kesa standing in front of a small trailer someone must have rescued from a junkyard long ago. He approached them and bowed politely.

"Are you Keiichi san?" he asked.

Keiichi gave the priest a once over. The man seemed rugged, as if he had been something much more dangerous before becoming a priest. The man's eyes were studying Keiichi like a pupil he wasn't sure would measure up yet.

Keiichi bowed to him in return. "That's me," he said. He gestured to the goddess next to him. "This is Belldandy."

"It's nice to meet you both," the priest said. "I'm Kazu." He turned and gestured to the aging shrine like someone who had done it a million times before. "So... still interested?"

Keiichi shrugged. "Sure, why not? What's the story?"

"The story is the monks in my temple want it restored, but we can't afford a contractor," Kazu said. "We've decided, therefore, to take a slower approach, have someone do it over the long term."

"Why don't you just do it?" Keiichi asked him up front.

"This is something of a pet project of mine," Kazu replied, taking no offense to the question. "Most of the monks don't think it's worth the effort of trying to restore. Those of us that do are too old to be doing that kind of work." He paused for a moment. "It was a great place once, or so I'm told."

"Looks like a bomb went off in it," Keiichi noted.

"One did," Kazu confirmed, taking Keiichi momentarily aback. "The Navy had a munitions depot not far from here during the war. An American airplane hit the depot, and one of the bombs missed and hit the temple."

Keiichi bit his lip as Belldandy approached the temple and ran her hand along one of the rotting banisters.

"It doesn't pay much," Kazu admitted.

"The ad mentioned a room," Keiichi prompted.

The priest chucked a thumb back at the trailer. "Over there," he said. "And if you decide to stay, I'd advise you to fix up the residence first. Otherwise you and your wife are going to find it a little cramped."

Keiichi didn't bother to correct the record, unsure as to how the priest would feel about an unmarried couple living together in a temple. "What about materials?" he asked. "Wood and stuff?"

Kazu looked vaguely uncomfortable. "You can call me and give me a list of the stuff you need, and we'll get it for you."

The college student smiled at the implication. "Uh huh," he replied noncommittally.

"We've been burned before," Kazu admitted sheepishly. "We don't want to be again."

"Guess I can respect that," Keiichi confessed. He gave another nod to the temple that Belldandy was busy exploring. "Anything in there work?"

"Water," Kazu told him. "But I wouldn't drink it until you replace the pipes unless you're a fan of brown. There's a bath house about a mile away."

Keiichi took a breath. That was going to suck...

But really what choice did they have?

"Okay," he told the priest with a nod. "We'll do it."

"You have skills, I trust," Kazu said.

"I can do the job, old man," Keiichi told him pointedly. "I go to school, though, too, so don't expect twelve hours a day out of me."

"Fair enough," Kazu told him.

Keiichi held out a hand, and Kazu shook it. He gave Keiichi a card with his number on it. "Let me know what you need. There are tools in the trailer. I'll let you and your wife get settled."

The college student watched him start down the path before turning back to the temple and taking a deep breath.

"Okay," he said. "No sweat. Just like rebuilding a motorcycle..." He let that thought settle for a moment before adding. "A twenty-five hundred square foot motorcycle... Fuck!"

Keiichi looked up from his thoughts as Belldandy came bounding up to him from the temple. "This is a good place," she declared. "The spirits here are friendly and are eager to assist in restoring the temple."

"Great," he said. "Tell them to start with the plumbing. How's the inside look?"

"There's a great deal of history," she said. "It's seen a great many things."

"So... 'shitty,' I'm guessing, right?"

Some of the enthusiasm began to fall from her eyes. "Would it help if I told you that you are doing a good thing?" she asked.

Keiichi looked over her shoulder at the temple again and watched a part of one of the supports fall into the large hole in the ceiling.

"You want an honest answer to that?" he asked.

Her lips pursed into a thin, disapproving line. "The Almighty One has given you an opportunity to help someone while being helped in return. You should be grateful."

"Oh, of course," Keiichi said mock-seriously. "I'm overjoyed with the fact that a strange woman blasted my dorm building off its foundations and found us a nice place to live on the set of a John Carpenter movie. Maybe we'll get super lucky and the place will be infested with wasps."

Belldandy looked a touch uncomfortable with that statement. "It is," she admitted.

He growled and started for the trailer, wanting to see what kind of mess his new home was in before he saw the temple itself. Belldandy fell into step beside him.

"It won't be bad," she told him quickly. "I promise. I'll help you."

He didn't reply, instead he pulled the door of the camper open and climbed inside, Belldandy just a step behind him. Inside the camper was a tiny folding cot, a kerosene lantern, and a small tea kettle sitting on a single-burner camp stove.

Keiichi turned to her and nodded at the cot. "Which side of the bed do you want?" he asked.

Belldandy cleared her throat as a pink hue flushed her cheeks. She turned and stepped out of the trailer. "I think I'll take a walk."

"Watch out for wasps," he called to her back. "Hey!" he called again after a moment. As she turned back to him, he went on. "I'm going to the dorm to get my stuff. I'll be back in an hour."

"Very well!" she called back before heading back to the temple.

He started walking, making his way back down the trail and toward his Beemer.

"That girl is just wound way too tight," he muttered.

888

Belldandy looked up at the sky through the hole in the bathroom roof and chewed the inside of her cheek in thought. Reaching out absently, she pushed the faucet's lever and heard a sputtering choking noise fill the room. A moment later, water the shade of root beer began to fill the tub. She hadn't had a chance to bathe since she left Heaven, and no, the flood in the dorm didn't count.

Undoing the buttons on her blouse, she stripped down as the tub filled and tried to get a hold of her situation. Keiichi Morisato was confusing to her. One minute he was abrasive and cynical and the next she was a moment away from making a solid connection with him. Then, three seconds later, he was abrasive again.

Whatever dealings she had had with mortals in the past meant nothing now, and she knew it. Keiichi Morisato was uncharted territory, and she had no idea when he was being serious or facetious. His comment about the bed in the trailer had given her a moment of frightful uncertainty. Even the best of mortals, she knew, could be ruled by their physical passions.

She knelt next to the tub and turned the water off. Examining the dirty, rust-filled water below her, she brought her fingers to her lips and closed her eyes as she kissed her fingertips. A moment later, she reached down and touched those fingers to the water's surface, causing a ripple to spread across the tub.

As the ripple passed, the water cleared until it was clean enough to drink if she so chose. Lowering herself into the water, she closed her eyes and sighed.

She was stuck. Peorth wouldn't help her, which meant that the only way out was through. She had to find a way to grant Keiichi's wish. Once she did that, she would be free to return triumphantly to Heaven.

So how could she make his life complete? What did the lower rungs of mortal society look for in life? Wealth? Women? Possessions?

Unfortunately, even Keiichi didn't seem to know what his wish meant. She would have to figure it out.

She looked up at the sky above her and took a breath.

There must be some kind of way out of here...

End Notes:

A preview of Chapter 2.

Belldandy stood in the middle of the hallway outside Kakuta's class, searching vainly for where Keiichi had gone. She had demanded to go to his school that morning, mainly to find out more about Mr. Morisato and what might make his life complete—thereby ending the wish's obligation and her forced residence on Earth, and saving all humanity at the same time.

She hadn't been prepared for the hustle and bustle of the college, however. There were so many different people with a corresponding mix of emotions. Walking along the hallways, she had been taken aback by the veritable smorgasbord of thoughts assaulting her consciousness.

And then, there had been those accusations… Was Earth all that different from Heaven? Or, she thought darkly, the other way around? In Heaven, her…transgressions…had earned her reputation. On Earth, she had been condemned for little more than appearance and circumstance. Either way, there was no escape from the casual cruelty that tore at her. At least Keiichi hadn't condemned her, even if he wasn't exactly thrilled she was around.

She could understand that, too. She had made it abundantly clear she wasn't exactly thrilled either.

Around her, the traffic flow had increased as backpack-toting college students filled the halls, heading to their classes. She turned in a slow circle, trying to find some hint in the air as to what she should do or where she should go.

"Hey there," a woman's voice said from behind her. "I haven't seen you around before. Are you new?"

Belldandy turned to see a dark-haired, Eurasian-featured woman dressed in stylish, yet conservative, clothing. Fairly tall and slender, the woman had an air of indescribable poise and assurance that Belldandy had seldom seen outside of Heaven.

The woman smiled and extended a hand. "My name is Sayoko Mishima; I'm an electrical engineering student here. You are?"