A/N: Good evening, and welcome to my first attempt at a) a short story, and b) a Love Hina short story. I'm usually writing longer works, but my darling honorary sis and beta-reader, Sora, challenged me to write a one-shot Love Hina fic. So, after a bit of hemming and hawing over a plotline, I accepted her challenge. One week later, this is the result.

As always, copyrights apply. However, if Mr. Akamatsu decides to share some of his wealth with me, I certainly won't object.

And, of course, COMMENT! Even if it's just to tell me how horrible this is, please say something!

Finally, I will say this… please, don't hurt me! :-D

And now, without further ado… I present…

Love Hina: Trouble at Hinata

There was something about the town of Hinata. Maybe it was the wonderfully refreshing hot springs, conveniently located at the former Inn-turned-dormitory. Maybe it was the shops, or maybe the sorta-creepy town council. Or maybe the fact that at random times during the day, Urashima Keitaro, manager of the Hinata All Girls Dormitory would get sent into near-orbit.

It was a bright sunny spring day, and certainly no exception to the rule. As three o'clock rolled around, the town turned towards the dormitory. It was a known fact that you could almost always set your clock to Keitaro's departures into orbit. 3 P.M. was when Keitaro returned from his daily study sessions for Tokyo U. It was also when Naru returned from those same sessions. Invariably, some random combination of events would conspire to cause Keitaro to grope Naru or one of the other residents, to topple them, or even, on several occasions, to see things that it was probably best he not see at his (sorta) young age.

Right on cue, the manager of the Hinata came flying through a hole in the second-story roof. His ballistic trajectory, if calculated properly, would have him landing in the the river over a kilometer away. True to form, a few moments later the screaming, flailing Keitaro impacted the center of the river, sinking like a stone. The rest of the town turned back to their daily activities, contented that tradition had been preserved.

Naru and Su looked up through the newly created hole in the roof of Naru's room. Su was wearing a white labcoat and holding a pencil and small notepad in her hands. "Wow, Naru, I think that's the furthest you've sent him flying this week!"

Straightening up after one of her infamous Naru Punches, the girl visibly relaxed. "He had that one coming. What nerve!" And thus, another typical day continued at Hinata. Or, at least, that's what it seemed. We all know, though, that nothing is ever what it seems.

It should be pointed out by our illustrious author, who is intent on wrecking the fourth wall as many times as possible, that the history of the Hinata Inn while under the care of Urashima Keitaro is extremely varied. The residents have had to face such horrors as mecha tamas (courtesy of the resident insane scientist, Su), vengeful spirits, incursions of Tama-chan and her relatives (to the ever-lasting chagrin of Motoko), and even invasions by Seta and his daughter. To the author's count (mind you, these numbers had to be inflated to represent a proper count), Keitaro created no fewer than 419 holes in the ceiling, floor and walls of the Hinata Inn. Of these, approximately two thirds were due to Naru, while the other third came from Motoko. What is important to realize, however, is that despite all this the inn still stood, oblivious to all attempts to destroy it or its occupants.

On that spring afternoon, then, with the trees in bloom and Keitaro fishing himself out from the bottom of the Hinata River, no one was aware of the evil that was descending on the Hinata Inn. It started oddly enough; retiring to her room after the debacle with Keitaro, Suu found that the table on which she kept her latest inventions was missing a leg. The young girl scratched her head for a moment and shrugged in a typical Su-like way before turning her attention to whatever bright shiny object had caught her eye. She didn't think much of the missing table leg until much later on.

Naru had just shut the door to her room behind her, content that she would at last get some quality study-time. Softly stepping across the room, she picked up her textbook and pencil, her mind already churning over the latest math chapter. A moment later, realizing she had forgotten to get some paper, Naru stood up and walked back across the room, crossing the spot where the hole in the floor between her and Keitaro's room was located. Normally, there would be a piece of board covering the hole, strong enough for anyone to walk on. Unfortunately, the board had vanished. Naru, eyes locked on the book she was holding, never realized this fact until her foot encountered open air and she went tumbling through the hole, winding up sprawled face first on Keitaro's futon, wondering what had happened.

Naru and Su were not the only ones to encounter such strange occurrences. On the roof of Hinata, Motoko the expert Kendo swordswoman was performing her afternoon practice rituals, involving slicing one hundred falling leaves neatly in two with her sword. Approaching the end of the hundred, Motoko's keen concentration kept her mind from wandering. Reaching the last leaf, she put extra effort into it, glad to be finished. Slicing downwards at full force, she was stunned, to say the least, when a branch from the tree overhead, whose leaves had been unwilling targets for her sword, fell squarely on her head. Rubbing the sore spot, she looked down at the branch, then up at the tree, wondering what had just happened. Looking closer at the branch, she realized that it was still healthy—there was no reason that it should have come down on her.

Down in the kitchen, Shinobu was hard at work making dinner for the residents of the Inn. The middle schooler went about her culinary arts with a smile on her face, whistling to herself as she moved from pot to pot, insuring that every ingredient for tonight's meal was perfect. The slightest mismeasurement could be a downfall to her food, she knew, and that was why she took pride in her work. She reached for the wooden spoon she used to stir the ingredients and picked it up while checking one of the simmering pots. Leaning forward to stir the pot, she became aware that there was a problem when she realized she was holding half a spoon. The lower half was gone.

No good story about Hinata would be complete without including mention of the "foxy" Kitsune. True to her form, the devilishly clever young woman was in her room, watching the horse races on her small television. She had just finished ripping up her newspaper in disgust, upset that her favorite horse had placed last in the race, when she noticed something odd. The television seemed to be sinking. Or, to be more precise, the table that the television was on was sinking as if it was mired in quicksand. Kitsune didn't know what was causing this, but she suspected it had something to do with Su. Grabbing the table and television, she hurried downstairs, hoping that their mad scientist-in-training would have a reasonable explanation.

By now the residents had all gathered in the front room, each trying to figure out what was going on. Or, to be more precise, all but two. Keitaro was letting his clothes drip dry as he walked home from the river, while Su had not emerged from her room. "Where's Su?" Kitsune asked as she came down the stairs, television and what was left of the table in hand.

The others shrugged. "She must still be in her room," Motoko said after a second, holding the tree branch in her hand and giving a perplexed look as she dropped it on the floor. "I'll go find her."

Kitsune shared a look with Shinobu, holding the remains of her spoon, and Naru, who was massaging a nasty bruise on her forehead. "What's with the spoon?"

Shinobu shrugged. "Ano.. I don't know. I've never seen this happen before, even when I made Kaolla's 'Krakatoa Curry'." Everyone could remember that incident in which the curry was so spicy it actually ate through the plates, but left Shinobu's wooden spoon intact. "Why do you have your television down here?"

The silvery-haired foxy woman's shrug mirrored Shinobu's. "The table started disappearing." She pointed out the shortened legs of the table, then jumped back as the table started sinking again. "L… like that!"

It was about this time that Keitaro showed up, drying off nicely. "What's everyone doing down here?"

"It seems there's a mystery afoot," Kitsune eyed Keitaro, but upon catching Naru's glare her eyes quickly turned back to the remains of the table. "Something's happening to things around here. Shinobu's spoon. My table. I don't know why Motoko has that branch, though. What about you, Naru?"

Picking up the icepack sitting by her seat, Naru winced as the cold ice was applied to the warm bruise. "I was clumsy and wasn't watching where I stepped. But I have no idea what happened to that board."

Keitaro seemed about ready to say something when a familiar blur came rocketing down the stairs, foot connecting squarely with the side of his head sending him sprawling through another wall and impacting a tree outside. Su, landing on her feet, was wearing a strange outfit consisting of a white trenchcoat, fedora, and a fake moustache. She was also carrying a magnifying glass.

"I see that there's a mystery here," she said in a horrible fake French accent. "Never fear, Su is here!" Setting down the magnifying glass on the top of the table, she took one leap and landed squarely on Keitaro, who was recovering from the sudden strike. "Tell me, young man, where were you last night between eight and midnight?"

Motoko calmly came down the steps, taking her customary seat and glancing once at the branch. "When I told her that we had a mystery, she seemed intent on dressing like Cluseau and acting like him."

The others turned back to the interrogation, which had now focused on whether or not Keitaro had feelings for Naru. The line of questioning was clearly upsetting Naru, whose face seemed to be turning redder by the moment. Finally, Su asked the breaking question. "So tell me, Mr. Urashima, have you ever wanted to marry Ms. Naru?"

Before he could answer the question, Naru's foot settled the matter once and for all, and Keitaro found himself on his way skyward again, this time angling towards the souvenir shop in the middle of the town.

"That wasn't necessary," Su protested mildly, watching Keitaro's departure.

"Su, we've got more pressing matters here," Kitsune said with a touch of urgency as she realized the sinking feeling she had was not because she was short a table but because, it seemed, the chair she was sitting in was now vanishing like the table. "Like why it is that all wooden objects are disappearing. Usually something disappears because of you, Su. Last time it was the Mecha Tama, the time before it was your mechanical army of tanks."

"Well, the Mecha Tama Mk. 5 is currently under repair right now," Su thought out loud, "and the tanks were taken apart to build it." She shrugged. "Maybe it's those Japanese beetles the American media talks about in their country."

She bent down to look at the leg of the chair closely, then backed away and returned with the magnifying glass. "Aha!" She chuckled to herself. "I think I've found our culprit!"

"What?"

Handing the magnifying glass to Kitsune, she pointed to the leg. "Take a look." Kitsune looked closely and almost gasped. There on the leg of the chair, were hundreds of little metallic 'dots'. She wasn't quite sure, but she had a guess.

"Are those mechanical termites?"

Su nodded proudly. "Yep! I was wondering what happened to them. I guess a couple got out and decided to make themselves a nest."

"WHAT??" Came the cry from the rest of the group.

"Well, when I went back to my room I saw that one of the table legs on my experiments table was missing, and the jar holding the termites had a small hole in the lid."

"How hungry are they?" Motoko asked from where she was sitting.

"Uhh, it depends," Su replied slowly, making everyone feel a bit more nervous than they had a moment ago. "I was building them as part of my final showdown with Tama, and I programmed them to be able to eat a normal lumber store out of business before getting full. I think that it's safe to say that Hinata should fill them up."

"No!" Shinobu cried, distraught at the thought of losing her home. "Surely there must be some way of stopping them!"

"Well," came the reply from Su, "There is a way…"

Keitaro struggled back to Hinata, mumbling random things about Naru and Su. He had just crossed the river when an odd sight met him. The girls were standing outside, walking slowly toward the river. All of them were carrying sandpaper and blocks of wood, creating a "trail" of sanded wood. Behind them, a trail of silver led out of Hinata, marking the termites as they followed the trail of wood. Open-mouthed, Keitaro just stood and watched the modern-day Pied Pipers as they led the termites into the river. When the final termite had entered the water, Su gave a celebratory shout.

"They should rust in the water! Good job!"

"Umm, what's going on?" Keitaro asked from where he was standing.

The girls looked at each other before Kitsune answered with her typical sly smile and wink. "It's best you not know. Oh, and we'll buy you new bookshelves later…"

[A/N: Cluseau is the detective from the Pink Panther series... the bungling French detective who screws everything up but manages to still come out on top in the end. ]