Life After Molmol, Book Three : Storming The Red Gate

by Gojirob

On the run in the multiverse, seeking to stop a mad villain's unknown plan, the siblings of the Hinata-Sou are apart, but the people they keep running into are familiar indeed. Can the casts of other harem series aid or harm our heroes, and will a misguided effort at payback ruin everything? They will need all the help they can get, and from some unexpected helpers.

2. Chapter 2

Chapter One - Bluer Than Kitsune

MITSUNE KONNO'S PRIVATE JOURNAL

Funny part is, I don't have to watch myself on most things. This is still Japan, and Humans are said to have evolved from ape-like primates, except by those people who insist this couldn't possibly be the case.

This Japan consumes a bit more egg-wise, but its only just noticeable by a complete outsider like me. The US sent a whole family into space in 1997-then promptly lost track of them, leaving the space programs of the world hurting for cash. Again, not something I'd normally even notice, but Su said to keep who we are on the down-low.

So what almost tripped me up? In this world, China stayed in Nationalist hands till 1955, and the Korean War ended decisively, to the point Americans and Japanese complained about an 'era of economic dominance' by the united Korean Peninsula - which never happened, because a Mad Cow scare screwed up their beef exports something fierce. It also ended up closing an American burger chain that here is called the White Tower. Oh, and the Kims are a bawdy family comedy troupe known for the risqué. Good to know that they're funny somewhere.

Who'dve imagined that every last one of those subjects would all come up within five minutes of the self-same conversation? I sure didn't.

I recovered from every last blunder, but my hemming, hawing and blushing made me the target of a couple of pranksters I'll get into later.

Orion's Belt is more of a sash, here. I'm no astronomer, but those were always my favorite stars, and they remind me I am so far from home, my head can barely wrap around it.

I'm not at home. I'm in another universe. How's that for a girl who wanted to pay rent by boob-rub less than two years ago? I want Kei-Bro next to me, and Naru fuming. I want to snuggle while Shinobu cries, Su bounces and Motoko swears vengeance over Mutsumi's fainted body, which just fell out of her towel and onto Kei.

Su's device has been silent for three weeks, and I am getting desperate.

It's not that the people are bad. They seem like family by another Grandma, same as the Ulster Bunch at The Hilda Inn.

In a lot of ways, though, that only makes it worse. At least Kagurazaki Manager-San has plenty of work for me to do. I can't exactly get plastered when I need to be watching for my opening to universe-jump.

Lord, though I'd like to - a bottle in one hand-Kei in the other-wow, I'm worse than Shinobu.

What I would not give for some of her Hinata Soup right about now, topped off by some brandy.

Miyabi Kagurazaki was indeed impressed with her newest employee.

"An extra room? Konno-San, how did you even realize it was here?"

Mitsu wanted to avoid saying that there was a little bit of a thief in her, and the part about her convoluted mystic heritage seemed as far out as her being from an alternate world, in terms of even broaching it.

"Well, Manager-San, I saw the layout of the house, from inside and out, and there seemed to be a bit more house on the out than on the in. Besides which, wealthy families have been known to use panic rooms since before the Shogunate. This one I think, though, might've been from the Pacific War."

Miyabi saw the large rusted cans of food and agreed.

"The fighting and bombing never reached here. But Sakuraba-san's father was just the sort to set this kind of thing up. Just in his father's memory, he may wish to inspect this room himself. Well done, Konno-san. Your prior manager must have been very proud of you and your work."

Miyabi, Mitsu had learned, had a way of prying without prying, and a method of absolute politeness while doing so exceeded only by one other in that varied household.

"Well, he was the one who trained me-him and his Auntie, who was Ryobo before me. They kicked my butt, and set me straight where needed. My manager-he was more like my bro, and after awhile, said I had earned his respect. That felt good."

Miyabi showed that even this limited exchange had given her what she needed.

"You do seem something of a compensating overachiever, but I do not choose to argue with results. Are you prepared for today's set of inventories?"

JOURNAL

I've never once been on this woman's bad side, but I think it's apparent that is a place you never want to be.

I'm not a boat-rocker, but what I can't get is why this place exists. Aoi Sakuraba, my boss's boss, seems to be almost more of a cleaning lady than any sort of executive-in- training, and that's not a shot at her, just what she seems to do-perfectly, of course. If Miyabi Manager-San consults with anybody, it's Kaoru Hanabishi, who doesn't even live inside the main house, and is to hear it told, just another tenant. Now, it was clarified that he was the first tenant of the smaller house next door, and is held responsible for the behavior and deportment of those that came after him. Makes sense, though good luck with some of these folk on that front.

I don't know if it's my wacky heritage or just my bored mind seeking new challenges, but I love a good mystery, so I dug where I could without questions being asked about me, and what did I find?

Sakuraba is a big wealthy name in these parts, but so is Hanabishi. Kaoru and Aoi seem about the same age, and while not kissy-face, they obviously get along pretty well.

Okay. so Hanabishi is not exactly Pendragon in terms of rare and indicative names. But my check of newspapers and microfilms at the library showed the Zaibatsu headed by an old man with an heir mentioned but not named, so yeah, maybe.

Still, none of my business, and I'll be glad to drop the distraction the instant Su's device tells me to. Some here will be easier to say goodbye to than others.

I don't dislike Tina Foster for the differences between us. She has a rural accent, though her Japanese is flawless, and her hair is big blonde, and back home, she'd be another entry in the bust war, but it's a war I lost already, and that didn't mean a damned thing when Kei made his choice. I like or dislike Americans for the same reasons I like or dislike anyone else, and Texans just live so big, how can you not love them?

Again, it's not our differences I dislike. Yet after all the growth I was dragged kicking and screaming through, I just don't need to be staring into another damned mirror.

"Aw, C'mon, Mitsune-san! One little drink will do you good. Girl, you are tighter wound than Ms. Dolly Parton's newly broken-in brassieres!"

An image that almost had Mitsu laughing, but fighting against her own desire to climb into that bottle kept that back as well.

"Tina-san, I was hired to do a job. I also have to wait...for word from my family, back home. Doing those kind of leaves the good times back for now."

In truth, Mitsu had brought her workload upon herself, but in a good way. Miyabi, who had been expecting to have to supervise Mitsu on a constant basis (so many people who interviewed well went this way, in her opinion) instead found that she needed to only check in on her new assistant's progress and redirect her only when priorities actually changed, which was rarely. Mitsu had in effect been promoted to supervisor-of herself.

"I say, let the good times roll, and let's rock while we're at it! Geez, girl-even Miss Manager relaxes once in a while."

Mitsu found no help in a basic truth, so she sought a specific one to counter Tina with.

"What if I told you I used to relax all the time? That I used to do almost nothing but relax?"

Tina seemed puzzled by this assertion.

"Konno-San, I would find that very hard to believe. I'm from the great state and former Republic of Texas, but for that one, I'm straight out of Missoura. You gotta show me."

Mitsu shrugged.

"Can't show you, but I can tell you. My room? All four walls, lined to the gills with beer cans and sake bottles emptied personally. Legendary unpaid tabs at every tavern in Kanto. I was known as Kitsune then, too, but not because some kid thought it was cute. I exasperated everyone into calling me that."

Tina's eyes were lighting up.

"You puttin a dumb blonde Yankee on?"

Mitsu smiled.

"I used to rub up against my landlord and say that was my monthly rent. I made my best friend believe I was secretly a guy-and she'd bathed with me! I didn't know what the morning hours were, unless I was partying through them, or sleeping it off."

Tina looked to be bubbling with anticipation.

"So how'd you go from life of the party to no life, no party?"

Bristling at Tina's unintended slight, Mitsu moved in for the kill.

"Because all the tabs came due. That geeky landlord I rubbed up against to pay my way? I came to realize he was also the only man I will likely ever love. In short order, I was forced to realize that he, the woman who did my job before me, and the woman we all call Grandma couldn't take me seriously, even when I was as serious as a heart attack. My best friend, my sister? I so resented that she landed this nice guy I dismissed at first that I all but tortured her for a stupid stunt. I was so messed up by my failure to have him see me seriously, I lied to my youngest 'sister' about helping her land him, all to start up a scheme even I couldn't figure out, and I planned it! Then my next youngest sister up and begins to use one of the more devious aspects of my big plan, and in the end, everybody nearly throws both of us out on our ears."

Tina's eyes no longer held that excitement Mitsu had seen. It seemed to have been replaced by outright horror.

"The guy you love couldn't take you seriously? Almost cast you out of his life-for-for-ever?"

Mitsu felt she may have said too much, but distance from home seemed to compel her.

"Tina-san, I earned my way back up in their estimation. Now, our guy can still be a geek, my one sister who won him an uptight pain, and so forth. But now they urged me to relax, and it showed me that I had done the right thing. I'll gladly set people to fuming, but I will be taken seriously. So Kitsune the personality is a thing of the past. Because that's where she has to be. I almost lost it all. I found out I didn't want to. Back home, yeah, I can relax sometimes. But I will have no one outside my family thinking that way of me, ever again. I won't allow it."

Tina got up, and put her beer can in the trash, almost absently.

"You-you're like Aoi-chan. Steel beneath the sleeves. Wow-you are driven. I get you, Mitsune-san. I get you wanting to be taken seriously-"

She bowed as she left.

"Especially by the man you love."

JOURNAL

I hope and pray to God-Big G, not my family members - - that I didn't hurt her. I just had the oddest whiff of the bad stuff Molmol swept up at the Hinata-Sou. Does Tina-san have a boyfriend? I don't see her hanging with any guy except Kaoru, and they're just friends.

Unless that's just the way he sees it. Guys are seriously like that.

Then again, maybe it's a defense mechanism for him. Choosing a girl in this place might not be the wisest idea for him-or the easiest. The crush seems to run wide and deep for Hanabishi-San.

Taeko strove to get corners wiped that Mitsu had never even noticed in the kitchen. Chika got into corners that Taeko's figure would never allow for.

"Well, Miyabi-San is really impressed with your work. She is really hard to impress. I think that-maybe-she will ask Aoi-chan to ask her family to hire you to work for Sakuraba Holdings permanently. I am so envious!"

Mitsune, if she had been so bold (maybe close to it once, but still not that brazen), would have whipped out a measuring tape each time she saw Taeko.

*That girl's bust could make all of us back home cry - and it don't stop going!*

But whatever challenge she was to Mutsumi on a physical front, she seemed a greater one on the mental front - and by that, Mitsu did not mean her grades.

"Mitsu-I think I set fire to the stove again! Yaaahhh!"

"Taeko-chan-isn't that an electric range?"

The bespectacled girl was now openly sobbing.

"Please!?"

Mitsu made a show of reaching for the plug. But in fact she had already used her powers to cut the flow of electricity. All the super-stuff she could do actually still unnerved her. What did a trickster need with lightning and teleporting? So she made an effort to dial it all back to the mundane - everyday stuff with an edge.

"Chika-chan, is it out?"

"DON'T!"

Chika's words were odd, and did not seem directed at Mitsu. This was confirmed by the spray of cold water that came down on her, and the giggles during and after.

"Sorry, Mitsu-chan. Chika doesn't think what they did is at all-heh-funny-at least not much."

Two other girls stood next to Chika, one looking nervous, the other looking brimful of cocky confidence. Mitsu knew the sort.

"Gotcha!"

JOURNAL

The way everyone tells it, Kaoru-San rented a room here, and then Tina from his college showed up and also rented. Taeko followed her, and then her little cousin Chika changed schools just to be here, all with Aoi's increasingly nervous blessing. Though if she didn't really want to rent past Kaoru, then why...ahh...well. While Chika and her permanent tan was the last official addition to their group, she has these two friends who hang with her...and who seem to have latched onto me as a practice dummy for dumb pranks.

Guess I forgot to tell the powers-that-be in this universe this girl paid her karmic debts in full.

Chizuru Aizawa is a good kid who's kind of a bundle of nerves, which still doesn't stop her from asking all kinds of nervy questions about other people's private lives. Her biggest fault is going along with her best and oldest friend in anything she plans. Not that it entirely stops her from having a 'shouldn't smile' little grin on her face.

The real problem is Natsuki Komiya. My dinner-table stumbles seemed to mark me off to her eyes, and the pranks haven't stopped since. Girl has no restraint, and while I know several ways to put a scare in her, I can't guide that scare the way Grandma and Auntie did with me. I just won't be here long enough. I could do a lot more damage than good.

Still, enough is where I am. One more little dig is all it's gonna take.

Kaoru's response was almost spot-on to Mitsu's expectations. As he moved the boxes Miyabi had asked him to for Mitsu's count and categorization, he shook his head.

"They are just children, Mitsune-San."

Mitsu thanked her stars she had drawn the line on being called 'Kitsune' again. She had too much on her plate to deal with the feelings that dredged up.

"Yeah, everyone keeps saying that. I even told myself that, after the tacks on my chair. Then, after the glued-shut door. After the flaming bag of manure, I revised my opinion to 'children that need a talking-to'. A good talking to."

Kaoru had in fact quietly talked to the girls. They stared into his eyes and smiled, and he rightly assumed the talk had not achieved its purpose.

"What would have me do, Konno-San? Beat them with a cane?"

Mitsu pulled back, seeing the anger flare in his eyes.

"No one's talking about that, especially not me. I'm not even convinced it gets anything accomplished. All most kids I ever knew learned from that was - wait'll I get bigger and can do this to someone else. Plus, I hate people that gotta lord it over someone smaller. Don't put words in my mouth, Hanabishi-San. I'm not asking them to bow to me, or even show me respect. But if someone could get them to back off, that would be nice."

Kaoru seemed to calm down rapidly.

"That was uncalled for on my part, Mitsune-San. I-also think poorly of striking all but the most recalcitrant children, and only then if they have knowingly done something horrendous and unforgivable. I offer my apologies."

He shook his head.

"The problem is, I can't say why they're acting so bratty towards you. They are two very forward girls - they will broach almost any subject you can name - but normally I wouldn't call them bad girls. Maybe Aoi-chan can make some headway-ahh, these boxes have made me build up a sweat. Let me shake out this shirt before we go on."

JOURNAL

When he took off his shirt, I was looking forward to a beefcake parade-but damn.

This beef had been tenderized, and not in a good way.

Kaoru's back was loaded with scars. The kind of scars a kid might get from being beaten with a cane.

When he realizes I'm seeing this, I turn back to my work.

I had thought of Kaoru as a hunkier, less hapless version of my Bro. But even if I weren't in another universe, this still places me in a different world. This boy's carrying a lot more than just boxes.

God, Naru - what the hell were we all doing, and why did he stick around, after all was said and done?

I wanted my mind off of what I saw, so I went to talk to Landlady-San, the pleasantly perfect Aoi Sakuraba. I wish she were a big phony, so I could hate her instead of adore her. Some people, though, make it easier to think hateful thoughts.

MUCH easier.

I wish I'd found Aoi.

"I'm sorry, Miyuki-San. Kaoru-San has not spoken to me about you. I really don't think he would."

Mayu Miyuki was a very pretty young girl, much like Aoi Sakuraba. But if Aoi was content to be pretty and let that speak for itself, Mayu was not. On the multiversal journey of the Hinata-Sou's sisters, a very pleasant, charming young girl named Mayu would be encountered.

Mitsune was not to meet that particular Mayu.

"Oh? Just how is it a temporary employee would come to such a conclusion? Is it your astonishing three weeks of insight?"

Mitsune, for her part, repeatedly attempted to return to entering the data from her inventory on a computer screen, but Mayu was nothing if not persistent.

"Sorry, but you did ask me if he spoke of you. As for my insight, I only meant that, as a temporary figure in his life, Kaoru-San would likely never confide in me on anything regarding a friend of his. That would be improper, don't you think?"

Mayu almost seemed to blush at the logic, but caught herself.

"Well, at least you recognize your place. Though your manners could stand an upgrade. Do you plan to attend a decent school?"

It was then Mitsune came up with a terribly, awfully good plan. Being rude to the friend of her employers was out. She needed this job, till the universe-jump occurred. But if she could not be rude to this cute but annoying rich brat, she could outclass her.

"Actually, I'm studying for Todai."

Without so much as a single one of her strange abilities in play, Mitsu could feel Mayu Miyuki's blood positively freeze at this offhand reference. If this was not evident from the near-spasm as she turned to look at Mitsune (up till then their eyes hadn't met, a deliberate snub on Mayu's part), then her halting speech patterns told no lies.

"You? You-you consider yourself Todai material? What makes you think you can make that leap?"

Mitsu felt joy, again in not using one of her family's bag of tricks to accomplish something. Knowing that Mayu would dismiss talk of determination and study, the cut-short Todai entrant moved in a different direction.

"Back home, three of my housemates, people like my own brother and sisters, are second-year Todai students. They aid me in my studies, and they are tough ones. My bro got in after three tries, and my one sis after two-during which she was among the top mock-entrance exam finalists in all of Japan. So I think, with such folks helping me, my chances are pretty good. In fact, all of us in that house are seeking the Red Gate."

Mayu's jaw dropped.

"All of you?"

The path had been opened, and Mitsu ran down it joyously.

"Sure. Our little group includes a young master chef, who's dating an even better chef, both holding back on passion till Todai, an actual island princess-crazy wealth, and a samurai girl so tough, she can dual-wield bokken and sword and never miss one step of a single kata. Oh, and the bro I mentioned-he's also our guy. Not a single one of us wouldn't marry him on the spot-one of us is."

Mayu tried to recover.

"If all that's so, they why are you here?"

Mitsu was so far ahead of her foe, it scared even her.

"Situation back home. Things got a bit tense, once my bro made his choice, so we took some breathing room. I guess you could say I'm in mourning-for a guy I will never have."

If Mitsu was remixing the truth, it was still close enough that she said it all with a straight face. Not that the nearly-nuked Mayu could have noticed. Like a threatened cat, she reared up verbally.

"If my family wanted me in Todai, calls would be made, and that would be it. I could even see to it that you and all your 'siblings' were shut out of it for good."

Mitsu obviously could not cite the literal impossibility of this threat, but it annoyed her, to the point she did something unwitting. Lightning flashed inside her eyes, and her voice echoed unto itself as she spoke.

"AND IF MY FAMILY WERE TO SO MUCH AS SHRUG, LITTLE INSECT, YOUR FAMILY, DOWN TO ITS MOST REMOTE ANCESTOR, WOULD CEASE TO BE AS THOUGH IT NEVER WAS!"

Seeing Mayu now pale and shaken, Mitsu thought better of this, and again pledged to keep things mortal in her life, after correcting what she did.

"Okay, Miyuki-San-just forget that last part-and please conclude your visit. This girl's got work to do."

Mayu did as Mitsu directed, forgetting the confrontation.

"Hmph. Quite the extended family, I suppose. But how can you give up on your man so easily?"

Mitsu risked an open chuckle.

"It was anything but easy. Some things I did-well, they weren't responsible for everything, but it brought out some deep fault lines. Things that needed to happen, and needed to be said, and needed to be made clear-maybe just not all at once. He and my first sister in that place are the ones getting married. She rubs it in, sure, but we all wish them well."

Mitsu then recalled her parting shot and message at Naru, realizing maybe Mayu was hitting close to home. Not wishing her to realize this, Mitsu looked directly at her visitor.

"Miyuki-San, no offense, but Miyabi-San expects this work to be done by the end of the day, and I'm up against it."

Proving she simply didn't get it, Mayu sat down.

"You haven't answered my question. If he is the one you love, isn't that it? Don't you just persist until your goal has been achieved?"

Mitsu was almost astonished to see that this time, Mayu's look was almost one of pleading.

"Miyuki-San, have you been talking to Tina Foster?"

Mayu grew petulant.

"It's not like we're friends. She is an uncouth barbarian, and if we two are in the same room, an argument will follow. But in her unusually sober blather, she said how you wished this man to take you seriously. Why, if he and you are done with?"

If Mitsu had wanted to spank a rich snobby brat, pushing away a young girl in love was not in her, had never been in her, and never would be in her. The Sarah had gone Shinobu in a heartbeat.

"He's not a man's man like Kaoru-san. If I showed you his picture, you'd likely snicker, and I'd understand. But see, because he was a bit of a geek, and kind of awkward-very, very awkward-you have no idea-ahem-I dismissed him. Well, we all dismissed him, and we did a lot more than dismiss him."

"How-much more?"

"Prosecutable offenses, civil suits-some of us likely up for commitment to an institution-if he weren't such a nice guy."

Mayu actually gained a slight smile.

"It sounds quite raucous."

Mitsu smiled back.

"It really was. But anyway, one day I was forced to admit that, all my objections and teasing aside, I was in love with the guy."

Mayu nodded.

"What happened that forced this?"

Mitsu gulped.

"A girl who is his adopted sister and oddly enough, my real sister, tortured me with electrodes until I confessed. See, our Kanako, she's-she's-"

Mayu showed she at least knew what restraint was.

"You mean to say that she is an-eccentric."

Mitsu shook her head.

"No, I mean to say that she is a KOOK! Anyway, by this time, it was too late. My earlier efforts at being too-cool-for-my-own-good came back to bite me. He liked me, thought I was cute, but felt like I was all frosting and no cake."

As her butler Ruka Saionji came to fetch her, Mayu wrote on a piece of paper.

"If you should need further employment when this job is done, my family could use a sturdy worker like yourself. But do punch up your manners, Konno-San. Ta!"

Ruka watched his charge walk past him, and then waited till she was out of earshot.

"Take that offer seriously. I think she likes you."

JOURNAL

Okay, so she's not all hateful. But she is so obviously lonely, and more than a bit obvious for Kaoru. Some people are not so obvious at all, as I learned when chasing Tina's pet ferret.

"C'mon, Uzume! There's some feral dogs in the neighborhood, and they said not to let you outside till they're caught."

Mitsu had caught the lightning furball before, by shifting to become a ferret herself. It seemed to be a success, till Uzume got some aggressively friendly ideas.

"Note to self-a male ferret is still a guy."

Keeping to her personal promise, Mitsu scooped Uzume up without any invocation of her lineage or threat to her honor.

"Okay, you. Taeko said there's some crickets in the kitchen, so you can eat hearty..."

"EXACTLY WHEN WILL THIS FARCE AND LIE END?"

Uzume looked at Mitsu, and darted out of her arms, back to the small room Mitsu was using as an office.

"Yeah, boy. That perked my ears up, too."

Both hid inside the 'office' as the one-sided argument played out.

"Hey, is that Aoi-Chan?"

Mitsu knew her employer's voice well enough by that point, but while none of the politeness had left Aoi (and likely never could) the subtle sure-footedness she exhibited since Mitsu arrived surely had.

"Papa, my feelings have not changed. They cannot change. I wish Kaoru-Dono and I to be married, as our childhood betrothal set forth."

Mitsu's eyes went wide, but promptly she caught herself. Things that hadn't made a lot of sense now began to.

*I thought those two might be sweet on each other, but this? Wow-and she puts up with a houseful of other girls all saying how they want to snap her fiancé up?*

Mitsu guessed that Miyabi must know, but ended such speculation as Aoi's father resumed.

"That betrothal was based upon him being the heir to the Hanabishi Zaibatsu! If he has spurned his family, then he has spurned you as well. Do you think I will see my child marry a penniless bum who turns his back on those who kept and reared him?"

Mitsu could not see what followed, but nor would she be surprised to, having seen many a time that a soft-seeming soul can rear up to their full height when the one they love is threatened or maligned. Aoi's father saw her gaze narrow, and her eyebrows raise, and was forcibly reminded that, as for his wife, so for their daughter - a Yamato Nadeishko had steel beneath those long sleeves.

Yet not once did she raise her voice.

"Papa is wrong, as regards Kaoru-Dono. It is his very devotion to family that makes it so he will never seek the Hanabishis, ever again. Papa will please refrain from casting undue aspersions on him, for you will one day call him son."

Yet even for this Nerf Hydrogen Bomb, Aoi's father had a ready counter.

"Then call him to us, here and now. I will gladly call him son, if he shows he can respect his august grandfather and return to his proper place in the world."

"Papa, you know I cannot do that."

"YOU-you will call him now, or I will end this arrangement, and this circus atmosphere will fold tent, and all the clowns you've assembled can go elsewhere."

Mitsu felt Aoi's father practically broadcasting seriousness, even from her remove. But how to help? Mitsu felt like even lightning wouldn't put a man like that off for too long.

"Whoa, Mister Ferret-are those Taeko's glasses?"

The sincere yet clumsy Taeko had indeed popped a frame on one pair of her glasses while in Mitsu's office, and it gave the trickster a very mortal idea.

*But-I really REALLY gotta sell it.*

Just as Aoi's father seemed set to repeat his ultimatum, a frenzied figure emerged from Mitsu's office, waving her arms up and down, her over-large glasses almost seeming to leak tears, and shaking her head like the Flash himself.

"Ohhhhhh! Wherever is Kagurazaki-San?! I need her approval on all these papers, or I can't get my job done, and then I'll get fired for sure!"

Aoi's father looked on in confusion.

"Aoi-Chan, who is this girl?"

Aoi looked confused herself, but was quick to catch on.

"Mitsune-chan, what has you so upset?"

Mitsu bowed at Aoi, possibly more deeply than she had ever bowed to anyone, save Grandma herself.

"A thousand thousand THOUSAND apologies, Miss Sakuraba-San! But I'm at a loss-I'm beside myself with worry. OHHHH! I was doing so well, but now I'll mess up and be dismissed for sure."

Aoi's father shook his head.

"Miyabi-San would dismiss someone of good standing for a little late work? That doesn't sound like her at all."

Aoi saw her opening, and tried her best to widen it.

"Papa-Mitsune-chan is very diligent, and takes her work very seriously. Perhaps even too seriously, to the point her worries overtake her."

Mitsu now shook openly.

"Papa? NOOOOO! I've interrupted a discussion between my employers, brought disgrace to my position here, and dishonor to my family back home as well. Such things simply aren't done. I am-completely and utterly unfit to live. WAAAAAGGHHH!"

Aoi's father now seemed badly uncomfortable with this display.

"Aoi-Chan-please get this poor nervous thing calmed down before her blood pressure makes her explode! Our-other business can wait for another day. At least for right now."

Mitsu dropped to the floor and kept right on crying.

"Sakuraba-Boss-Dono is too kind to a stupid fool like me. Sooooo kind!"

When the sound of his vehicle doors opening and closing was followed by the driver telling Aoi goodbye and driving off, Aoi looked at her employee, smiling.

"You-really laid it on thick, didn't you?"

Suddenly, the smile was tempered.

"I thank you for your rescue, Mitsu-chan. My father visits here rarely enough that I think you have aided me for a long while ahead. But I must now ask - how much did you hear of our prior conversation?"

Mitsu rose, took off the glasses' frames, and wiped off her face. She shrugged at Aoi.

"Enough to know to keep my mouth shut, Aoi-chan. If there is one lesson I've learned, its let a couple's business be its business. I won't say a word to anyone."

As Mitsu turned to resume her work, Aoi placed a hand on her shoulder, leading Mitsu to wonder if even the gentle girl she had come to know could allow someone to stay around, having penetrated her biggest secret.

"Will Mitsu-chan please say some words to me?"

JOURNAL

She asked me to go to lunch with her, and hey, she is the boss. I did ask her to let Miyabi know, so there'd be no trouble there-wow, this girl has gotten a little too cautious. Then again, it's either have a paying job or take Kitsune form and scavenge.

I think Su said something about how to take care of money problems, but I snuck off and did my mischief to Naru's device while she blathered. Naru, honey, I hope you're okay, but oh wow did you have that coming.

At least, I thought so till I talked with Aoi.

Aoi sipped her soup, of course with a hummingbird's grace - which incidentally, happened to be the soup of the day. Letting her utensil drip off before placing it down on the napkin, she spoke to Mitsu.

"I have no one with whom I can discuss my situation, except Miyabi Onee-Chan. In her case, she is sympathetic, but feels compelled to remind me of my duty to my family. Yet that is my problem. I know my familial duty. I scream familial duty. I would bathe in it, if such were possible. My problem is, I wish that family to include as its head my husband, and someday the father of my children."

Mitsu tried to be as graceful with her soup, and settled for not slurping it before she spoke.

"So your folks won't let you marry the guy they betrothed you to, when you were both kids?"

Aoi was trying to find the words, not to hide a secret already exposed, but to keep from seeming to even lightly accuse her parents of having done anything wrong.

"When Kaoru-Dono walked away from his clan, he also ended the engagement, though at that point he no longer remembered it. In my parents' view, that made our marriage impossible, and ruined plans for the merger between his family businesses and ours."

Mitsu broke off a piece of biscuit and dipped it in the soup, thankfully not drawing stares for the secluded corner Aoi had requested.

"But then why do they let you live together?"

Aoi understood the confusion all too well.

"My heart and my being were molded to be the perfect wife for Kaoru Hanabishi. I know that many view Yamato Nadeishko as a foolish relic, and perhaps it is. But since it is all I have known, my determination to match up with that ideal is my only goal. It is more than my family's will, it is their wish and desire for me, and out of love, I have not relented any at all in pursuing it. How could I simply shift such devotion to that sweet boy, to that wonderful man, to a new betrothed? I found I could not, and let Miyabi-chan know this, and she told my parents. It is from this that the strictures, terms and stipulations of the arrangement emerged."

Mitsu had of course heard of Yamato Nadeishko, though she'd never met one before Aoi, Shinobu's efforts toward Keitaro aside. She knew enough to guess that for such a girl to openly defy her parents on any matter must have caused an embolism for Aoi's father, at least.

"What are those terms, Aoi-Chan?"

Aoi giggled very lightly, and dipped part of her own biscuit, treating it like indulging in a scandalous act. Mitsu's love/hate meter for this girl just kept swirling, for the simple act was just so damned cute.

"Ohhh-that is so good! No wonder so many do it like that. But I apologize. Our terms are simple, but stark. We must stay in the separate houses, with Miyabi-Onee present on those occasions Kaoru-Dono enters the large house. We must not attempt to elope-which shame I could never bring upon my parents, anyway, and which Kaoru-Dono would never ask of me. Lastly, we must tell no one of our arrangement. Your discretion is much appreciated, Mitsu-San."

Mitsu's guesses were being borne out, and she was growing ever more impressed with a couple who loved so fiercely, these conditions were somehow acceptable.

*If I'd had my shot with Kei, and this kind of thing came up, I'd give the whole bunch of them the finger while we did it on the family dinner table.*

But since Aoi never would, and again, Kaoru would never ask her to, Mitsu moved on to her next question.

"Wouldn't all this be easier to manage without a bunch of tenants, all of them hot for-I mean desiring your man as well?"

Aoi shook her head.

"It is hard for me to be alone with Kaoru-Dono. If Tina or Taeko is not tagging along just on the spur of the moment, Mayu-chan spots us while we shop, or Chika and her friends crowd around him-and me as well. Yet-they are also a delight to have around. They are my sisters, the same as Miyabi, and I can hardly fault them for the man they adore."

Aoi smiled, and again her practiced grace gave Mitsu very mixed feelings.

"I have been trained to hold back much of what I may feel, even to myself. But Tina-San? Who could ever hold her back? Taeko continues to fail, but she never stops trying, and this is an inspiration to me. Little Chika looks with wonder upon the mundane-she is infectious with her love and silliness. Even Mayu Miyuki-San-I feel sorry for her, to be so lonely and yet unable to say this-yet I understand her best of all. For Kaoru-Dono became the light in her life as a young girl as well. How could I turn even one of them away?"

Despite these high-minded sentiments, Mitsu spoke her mind as well.

"But you'd like to, wouldn't you? Have it be just you and him?"

Aoi steepled her hands as though in prayer.

"My wish would be that all our friends and loved ones were happy in one place, but that in that place, I am permitted to on occasion shout out the central fact of my existence : I, though a fool and a weakling at times, have gained my dream, and that dream is to have the one I love best of all be mine, for all to see and know. I am sorry that your dream could not come to pass, but this one is mine, mine alone, and I love you all as well, I will not hesitate to take pride in this."

If the gentle girl had simply punched Mitsu's face in at that point, her words still would have struck harder.

JOURNAL

Hit a little closer to home, why don't you, Aoi-chan? Of course, she offered up all kinds of apologies for her 'shameful' words, but she really didn't need to, did she?

All we could focus on was how Naru said the wrong thing at the wrong time, while we were all on edge, ya know, about being internationally wanted fugitives? Before we all glared-and I maybe did worse-we should have thought about how often Naru doesn't rub our faces in it, and how when she did on Molmol, she was as nervous as the rest of us.

Thank God none of the others messed with Naru's dimension-hopper. Playing with Su's stuff is never pretty.

Then again, they all looked as pissed as I was.

Naaaaahhhhh...ehh?

If I was pissed then, though, what was waiting when we got back from lunch would make Naru seem like Mutsumi, in terms of relative rage.

"Well, lady, since I know your secrets, let me show you one of mine."

Mitsu dug through her backpack, finding a sealed plastic kitchen storage bag, one made for freezer storage, so as to have extra resistance to moisture.

"Take a look at this picture, Aoi-Chan. All my nearest and dearest."

It was a picture taken in early September 2001, just before the attack in New York and the seeming loss of Grandma. Naru was posed over Kei, looking befuddled as always while reading a book. Motoko and Su were in the background, with Shinobu on the left and Mitsu herself on the right. Mutsumi had to visit home that day, but they had vowed to get everyone in next time.

"I'm-certain they must be perfectly lovely people, Mitsu-chan."

Aoi's reaction told Mitsu something was definitely wrong.

"Well, they can be a handful-whahhhhhttt?"

Mitsu took back the picture, only to find marks and words all over it.

Next to Shinobu's lower skirt, there were marks that said : HIDING SOMETHING?

By Naru's head was the message : VIOLENT GIRL?

"Yeah, she is. But only her sisters EVER call her that."

Next to Motoko's sword was the remark : WHEN YOU CAN'T FIND A GUY...

Her own image had : CHRISTMAS CAKE, ALMOST BAKED, but she couldn't have cared less about that.

"Su?"

The remark simply said : GANGURO NEVER DID CATCH ON, DID IT?

"You little pieces of...Kei?"

Keitaro's hair was marked up to appear bushy, and his glasses-frames were drawn ever wider, accompanied by the literary-level comment : GOD OF GEEKS AND LOSERS.

Aoi started to head out the door. She looked as close to fuming as someone like her ever really got.

"This will be addressed, Mitsu-chan. Those girls have certainly crossed the line, this time."

Mitsu realized they had no proof of the pranksters' identities, but this would be confirmed in short order.

"They touched my family. My only link to them-if I never see them-"

The thought, that she might lose them and even a reliable memory of what they looked like, drove Mitsu at last over the edge. Yet in her enraged mind, she thought at first not of the wolf, or the fox, but instead the rabbit.

An Oscar-winning rabbit. She held her finger up in the air.

"Of course you realize, this means war!"

Cornered the pair were, but mostly still defiant. Yet something had their attention immediately. It was not the earthy Tina, the well-built Kaoru, or the business-first Miyabi that tasked the girls.

No, this was a glaring Aoi, and Mitsu felt the chill from one so bubbly and bright even raising her voice slightly, and speaking in words that, while still polite, bespoke raw fury at their targets.

*Forget sleeves. This girl's got steel in and on every inch of her-and still that perfect pale skin-damn!*

Aoi continued with her speech, one she intended to give, whether those she tasked chose to hear her or not.

"Natsuki-chan! Chizuru-chan! You are the guests of one of my tenants, and I have striven to make you feel like honored guests in my home. But how do you repay us?"

She shook her head.

"I did not appreciate your pranks at Mitsune-San's expense, but when they were mere pranks, I, Miyabi-San and Kaoru-Dono, as first tenant, urged her to settle such childish matters herself. At that time, we were confident that some manner of rapprochement could be found. Yet still there is a line, and you have not merely crossed it, you have undertaken an Olympic Pole Vault over it. It is not an achievement you should be anything but deeply ashamed of."

A woman who did not express things like rage turned her gaze to Chika. The young pigtailed girl with an eternal tan (rivaling Su's natural skin tone) now looked pale. Mitsu had heard the tale of how much Taeko's young cousin had been smitten with both Kaoru and Aoi, and how bowled over her friends had been with this angel on Earth.

*Yeah, kids. But while some angels closed the lions' mouths, others burned whole cities away by staring at them. Guess which one Aoi is, here and now?*

"Chika-chan? Why did you not urge your friends harder against this path, one which it seems they had no braking mechanism, or ability to turn away from?"

There was a twinge in Aoi's eyes, one that genuinely made Mitsu believe the old chestnut ' harder for me than it is for you' as regarding what she had no choice but to do. This was even more evident as she faced down Chika.

"Chika is sorry, Aoi Onee-Chan. So very sorry. Most of these stunts, Chika heard them talking about, but thought she had talked them out of it. Chika also apologizes to Mitsu-San, for finding some of these things funny. But Chika knew nothing of this, or she would have stopped them, no matter what!"

Chizuru huffed.

"Way to support your friends, Chika-chan."

Natsuki wouldn't even look at her.

"Throw us straight under the bus, why don't you?"

Chika walked over and pointed at the pair.

"What sort of friends do such a thing, and what place does Chika now have in the eyes of her family, to have brought in the two who did such a low stupid thing? You will not dare be angry with me, for being angry with you!"

Chika got part of her answer when Kaoru held her as she cried, and Mitsu, once the subject of such an accounting, started to feel the slightest twinge of sympathy.

Just not a whole lot of it. With Aoi looking drained, Miyabi delivered the final judgment. The girls for their part now seemed to get how far they had pushed things. Fear had entered their eyes.

"If you cannot behave as guests and treat our guest and employee with minimum respect and simple courtesy, and you have shown explicitly that you cannot, then you have no place here, even for brief visits. What is more, should you take your banishment out on Chika-chan at school, we will take this matter to your parents, and perhaps to your school's principal."

The defiant ones were gone, and in their place were the badly stunned, nearly whipped. As their heads turned, each member of the household confirmed this painful decision. Tina Foster shook her head.

"This is family, kids. You messed with Mitsu's family. USA or Japan, not a good idea."

Kaoru was also of no help.

"Memories-of absent loved ones-are sacred things. I thought better of you girls."

Taeko was gentler in her phrasing, yet no less damning in her words.

"This just isn't like you!"

The two seemed set to run away in open tears, till Mitsu called a halt to the proceedings, exactly as she'd planned to.

"I ask mercy for these two. Their wrong was against me, and I'd like to give them a chance to make it all right again."

Hope sprung on the faces of Natsuki and Chizuru, but it was hope that Aoi soon dashed.

"Mitsune-San is gracious. But forgiveness requires repentance and confession. These two will not even speak as to why they felt it was necessary to harass you."

Not that such would have changed things, all knew, but it would at least remove one level of disgrace from the pranksters who were not at all funny. Mitsu kept on with her plea, for reasons lofty and crafty all at once.

"I ask this then as a personal favor, for good service provided."

Aoi looked to both Kaoru and Miyabi. The man of the house (in more ways than one) nodded.

"Aoi-chan has told me of your special service to this household. Miyabi-San, I believe we should allow Mitsu the opportunity she desires."

Miyabi saw assent in Aoi's eyes, and it was apparent to Mitsu that Miyabi as well knew she now kept the house's secret.

"I will endorse this idea. But Mitsu-San must keep these two rapscallions on their toes. If they are anything but repentant as they take your punishment, then the banishment stands."

The faces of the two girls were now taken over by smiles, and looks of gratitude at Mitsu.

Again, this is exactly what Kitsune planned.

JOURNAL

Now, my friends-my family-put me through the wringer, and in the end I had to take a lot of it without saying how this or that was unfair, or what someone else had done. That was just the position I found myself in, right or wrong-and at least part of it was right. But in that wringer, Kei and the girls also gave me a chance that I was bright enough to seize.

So now, out of fairness and justice, I have to see if these two will use the rope I give them to climb out, or whether they can just go hang.

Before that chance comes, though, they will learn just why Naru was so mad at me. Conceded, it'll be a bit like nuking a roach.

Some roaches just need nuking.

Sorry girls, but it's a bug hunt, and it is on.

Natsuki kept the sour expression she'd had since arrival as she carried two more boxes.

"How many of these stupid things do I have to move back and forth?"

Mitsu looked up from her computer and smiled.

"How many boxes are there? Cause that's how many you'll be moving, I guess."

Chizuru looked close to tears.

"My arms are falling off!"

Mitsu saved her document, and looked up again.

"Resent me all you want. Because one, I just won't be here that much longer to have to deal with it, and two, you brought this on yourselves! It was like I met you, and then I started seeing marbles beneath my feet, and on from there."

Mitsu had tagged Natsuki as the ringleader, but did not see Chizuru as a total innocent in this. Mutsumi had once told Mitsu that she suspected on some unthinking level, Kei's ecchi blunders and Shinobu's crying jags that got Kei some memorable beatdowns were deliberate, though not viciously meant. Mitsu had a feeling her two 'prisoners' might be in the same boat-just a hunch she couldn't explain-but before she cut them the slack she would gladly give her family members, she wanted to see something resembling repentance, and so far she had gotten none.

Natsuki leaned in, smiling cutely.

"We could turn the full force of our Kawaii-ness on you."

Chizuru joined in, dimples set to maximum.

"Even the sternest principal finds it hard to resist!"

Mitsu lightly chuckled.

"Girls, it won't work on me. I'm not impressed by Kawaii, and even if I were, I have known two of the most Kawaii girls you could ever possibly know. One of those, a girl named Shinobu? She is to Kawaii what Aoi is to Yamato Nadeishko."

The two girls lost their smiles and recoiled in fear. Chizuru shook her head.

"No way! She's have to be Super Saiyajin Kawaii to achieve that."

Natsuki seemed to be having even more trouble with the concept.

"Aoi-Chan is already so damned cute as it is. If someone took her whole package and set those stats to cuteness alone-uhhhh! My mind can't even crunch those numbers. How can you stand to be around her, Konno-San?"

Mitsu looked at the picture that had started all this, restored by Tina Foster to most of its original status.

*Girl's a damned good shutterbug.*

"Actually, I have trouble not being around her. When she first moved in, she asked to sleep with the older girls in their rooms. She used to need us a lot more..."

Mitsu used her distraction as an excuse to get up - and start the real evening's entertainment.

"Why don't I help you with the rest of those boxes, so we can call this a night?"

Deliberately moving fast and true to annoy her slacking-off penitents, Mitsu overheard what she wanted to.

"I am gonna get her but good."

"Natsuki-chan, No! The work isn't that hard, and we did deface someone's property. Let's just finish this stuff and avoid her till she leaves this area and goes back to her home."

"Is Chizuru-chan sweet on that old mope now? She did get us in trouble."

Chizuru picked up two more boxes.

"I'm not letting you dig us in any deeper."

Natsuki began to grumble.

"You were deep into this already. What did I do, lead you astray?"

Mitsu used this opportunity to spring her trap.

"What? My office door is closed-and do I hear scratching in there? Did you two lock Uzume-San in there, hoping he'll do a ferret's duty all over my carpet? I-better let him out."

After Mitsu went in and closed the door, Chizuru shrugged.

"Did we put Uzume in there? Should we be messing with Tina-San's pet?"

Natsuki rolled her eyes.

"Don't you get it? She goes in there, disappears, then jumps out to scare us. Well, she who laughs last. Do you have your juice container? We'll fill it with water, and call it self-defense."

Giggling, the pair filled it, then knocked on the door to Mitsu's office. Natsuki readied herself.

"Konno-San? I think we just found a missing file. Please come out and see it?"

When no response came, Chizuru began to open the door to the office, while Natsuki shook up the juice container, ready to release its water, milk-and-more.

The low growl was the first hint that something was really about to happen. As is said, slowly they turned.

There, meeting their eyes was a large black wolf, and its fangs were bared. For her part, Chizuru dropped the water container, while Natsuki contemplated letting all her personal water out on the floor beneath them. Both girls attempted to discuss a reasoned reaction to the growling monster's inexplicable presence.

"YAAAAAAAGGGHHHHH!"

That is to say, they attempted to discuss this. Failing in that, they ran like hell back down the hall, making for the stairs. But something was waiting for them-something, or someone.

"Well, there wasn't anything inside the office, so you two are off the hook."

Just as inexplicably, Mitsune was waiting for them at the stairwell entrance, where she smiled a full-on Kitsune special.

"Now back to work!"

While frightened out of her wits, Chizuru was willing to let this bizarre interlude go and finish up. Mitsu had read her in this, by way of simply knowing people, not by way of any super-powers she still didn't remotely understand.

"No! There was a wolf in that office! A Big Wolf!"

In that same way, Mitsu had read Natsuki as being too forward to let the incident go, and this reading had been spot on. While she had used her lineage to accomplish this prank - and improved her teleportation to keep her own clothes on, at least - the rest was pure con-artistry, and she was loving it.

"A wolf? Ok-I get it. You girls want to get me again, right? I go in the office, and you laugh your cute little hineys off at old Mitsu. If I trip your trap, can we finally get back to work? I'd just as soon not make things difficult for Chika-chan, at this point."

Again, Mitsu walked past them and closed the door to the makeshift office. Chizuru shuddered.

"How can she not have seen that thing?"

Natsuki looked back at the stairwell door.

"Well, I for one am not opening up that office again. Screw this! We did our time in the barrel, and now things are getting freaky!"

Chizuru stopped her as she turned.

"No! We'll be thrown out and make things hard for Chika-chan. We didn't set out to do that. Maybe if we finally show repentance for all this..."

"HELL No! We wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for that workaholic mope, and I for one do not want to be trapped in some kind of demonic time-loop over a bunch of pointless pranks."

Chizuru looked down.

"I'll go upstairs. But I'll offer some other service as my punishment. I like coming over here, and I'm not even sure anymore why we were doing all this."

Natsuki paused at her words.

"We...we were...what does it matter? Let's just get upstairs, talk to Aoi-chan or Miyabi-san, and leave here. I never want to see this basement...again?"

As they opened the door to the stairwell, there again was the wolf, looking just as hungry for schoolgirl soufflé. But one stood firm.

"C'mon, Chizuru-we can take this thing!"

Natsuki's brave front was not met with like response.

"No we can't!"

Screaming again, they ran back to the office, once more to find Mitsune alive and well.

"Did you just run out of good pranks, or something? Cause I'm not even getting this one, even a little. So where's your wolf?"

The girls stood in blind panic, as Mitsune mocked them.

"Is it maybe hiding beneath my desk?"

Mitsu hunched down, and looked.

"Hey, there is something down here...oww!"

She came back up, covering her right hand.

"Stupid thing bit me! Hope it wasn't rabid."

Natsuki thought she saw through a scheme.

"A wolf was beneath your desk?"

Chizuru could barely see straight.

"And it bit you?"

Mitsu rubbed her hand.

"Yeah, but no blood, just the bite. Owwww!"

She began to rub at her head, and seemed to convulse.

"Not feelin so good..."

Thinking she was ready for anything, Natsuki tapped Mitsu on the back while she was turned away, speaking sarcastically.

"Does it hurt much?"

Mitsu looked back at the pair with yellow eyes and a mouth that was now sprouting fanged points instead of teeth.

"GET AWAY!"

Advice they both took, this time making for the stairs and reaching them, scrambling up as fast as they could possibly go.

For her part, Mitsu resumed her normal appearance and smiled.

"Kids today - no appreciation of Classic MTV."

As the now-reformed former pranksters got outside, a non-lupine Mitsu was waiting for them. Natsuki threw up her arms.

"Just eat us, already!"

Chizuru seemed on the verge of tears.

"Please make it quick!"

A very satisfied Mitsu handed the pair an envelope.

"Open this up and all your work is done."

Natsuki shook a bit as she opened it.

"Bet it says Welcome To Hell."

Chizuru pulled out the paper inside.

"I never even confessed to my teacher!"

Natsuki found, her situation aside, she couldn't resist the opening.

"Not your homeroom teacher-geez, girl, you can do so much better."

Mitsu sighed, took the paper, and held it before them.

"Sorry, but with you two, this could take all night!"

The paper had but one word scrawled on it, next to a cartoonish doodle of a wolf's head.

GOTCHA!

Ignoring the angry glares before her, Mitsu threw the paper down and aimed a glare of her own.

"Now how about you tell me why you felt like taking things so far, that I had to do this?"

Natsuki pointed.

"You scared the crap out of two sweet innocent kids!"

Mitsu was prepared for any argument they had to offer, except one.

"No. I scared the crap out of you two, and you had a lot worse coming. Try again."

Chizuru made a half-hearted at best attempt.

"We could tell the others about how far you went. I'm sure they won't like that."

Mitsu just looked at her nails while responding.

"Do either of you have the slightest idea how I pulled all this off?"

The implication was right there for the duo : their credibility was already shredded with their other friends, and a revenge prank they couldn't even prove happened let alone explain left the advantage fully with Mitsu. But Natsuki made one last try, doomed though it was.

"You wanna know why we pranked you? It's because you're an old mopey stick-in-the-mud who practically begs for someone to slap a kick-me sign on their back!"

Lightning flashed in the background. Mitsu said one word.

"Blucher!"

The girls simply stared at her.

"Classic movies, too? You kids got no culture at all. Now, I want you to tell me your real reason for acting like a couple of morons, or I will go to Miyabi, Aoi and Kaoru and tell them not only did you not help me at all tonight, but you didn't even show up. Don't think I can't lie a whole lot better than you can. I don't like it, but I will do it. So give-NOW!"

With all escape cut off, the girls who found the Human more frightening than the wolf gave their real reasons for starting a war they had just lost in a major way. Chizuru first found the words.

"You don't belong here."

Natsuki turned, glanced at Mitsu, then nodded. Her look was much sterner than her peril should have allowed for.

"You're not right, somehow. Looking at you makes me feel wrong inside."

Mitsu was ready to verbally-and maybe more than just verbally-slap back at their snark, but she sensed somehow there was more to this.

"Ok, I'm listening. Just how is it that myself, who is gainfully employed here, belongs less than you two freeloaders do?"

That got their attention, especially Chizuru's.

"We help Chika clean up around here! Besides, it's like Natsu said-you don't fit in around here-maybe anywhere."

Mitsu immediately put the thought in her skull that she was being bamboozled by a pair of young masters, being fed a line so outrageous common sense couldn't handle it. She'd gotten by that way herself, more than a few times. But once more, she saw something in their words. Given her situation, it was almost common sense itself.

"Okay, the lady said, maybe falling for a line of bull-what is it about me that doesn't feel right? Be specific, if you want to get through this."

Natsuki seemed more ashamed about this than any prank.

"It's like when you see a new kid at school - or a family just moved into the area-or someone visiting from the other provinces-or not even from Japan-or Asia-except I never once felt that way about Tina-San."

Chizuru picked up, and as they went on, Mitsu began to feel like the two could not possibly have practiced this.

"Tina-San looks like she doesn't fit in - but she does. You look like you should, and you act like you should-but you don't. You're from Japan - but it's like you're from another Japan. Wow-that makes no sense at all."

Natsuki shrugged.

"I can't think straight around you. Neither of us can. It's not that we, ya know, like you in that way. We don't go out of our way, usually, to hate on someone who's not from around here. So it's not like, and it's not hate - it's just like a rash on our brains. We were being asked off the pranks, and warned off the pranks, and we could see where it all was going, but every time I thought of just adjusting to having you around, I had this static in my head."

Mitsu felt a dread in the pit of her stomach. Gears were tumbling, and hell was the noise they were making.

"Did you tell anyone that you were feeling this way about me?"

Natsuki actually seemed shaky, so Chizuru answered.

"Yeah. But they all said you just required getting used to."

JOURNAL

Note to Kaolla Su : Princess, these visits have a side effect. The Multi-verse isn't just a row of houses that look almost exactly the same. These two kids - and maybe everyone else - can tell I wasn't born here, or anywhere they ever heard of. Kei told me something about the atoms of air you breathe right now contain atoms of air once breathed by Christ or Caesar or Buddha or -you name it.

Naru had to be cheeky and say how that was more of a generalization than a proven fact, but it fits. What if the air you have that old Julius took in when Brutus back-stabbed him came from a different pair? What if here, Brutus decided not to join the killers, or Antony did?

All that aside, what happens when you get that 'out-of-towner' reaction from everybody in the whole damned universe?

I have got to find that portal out. These two kids for some reason are more sensitive to my being here than the others, but what if everyone starts to feel the way they do? Worse, what if I spend so long here that, when I get home, my family sees me that way? I couldn't handle that. Not again.

I want to make Kei blush. I want to make Shinobu squirm. I want Naru to roll her eyes at my antics.

But first, I gotta see if I can get peace between me and these two wannabe Kitsunes.

Mitsu clapped her hands together.

"Here's the thing, kiddies. I am an odd one. I have some crazy heritage. As you both just said, it's not right giving someone grief because they don't quite belong. Still, you're gonna feel what you're gonna feel. So hear me out, and see if this helps."

She looked at Natsuki.

"I'm not here to harm you, or anyone else. I'm here to do the job I was hired for by Miyabi-San, then clear out. If I can help you while I'm here, I will. But don't mess with me, or my family, ever again. For the record? That 'God Of Geeks And Losers' is more man than anybody you are likely to meet outside of Kaoru-San, pert near every girl I know wants to marry him. My single greatest regret is that I made him think he didn't matter to me for so long, he bought my lie as much as I did. That's why I'm an old mope now, if I am. Because you can always loosen up. Being taken seriously when before you weren't? That's the heavy lifting."

Natsuki seemed a bit calmer for these words.

"What made them dismiss you earlier?"

Mitsu didn't have to think far back.

"I followed our guy around one day, getting him tossed from job after job when he needed one. I-wasn't one to be around when chores needed doing, unless it was a fun thing like a Son-Goku play we staged for some kids. When one of our sisters had trouble disciplining the one she was responsible for, I just mocked any efforts to bring either of them in line-"

"Doesn't sound so bad."

"-not near to finished. Don't interrupt. After our guy chose my loving but uptight sister, I used that super-kawaii girl I mentioned to get us all to chase after them. So into scams by that point, I didn't even realize I was doing it. I got way too into what we were doing-ended up hurting my sis. Got back home, was more depressed than I thought. I ended up stealing a bottle of prized sake from that samurai girl-and then-"

Chizuru almost fell from leaning forward too quickly.

"Yes!?"

Mitsu briefly realized that she was talking to these two non-residents more than she had spoken to Keitaro's two friends in the last four years. Also, she was getting way intimate in the details. Deciding that she could never forgive someone who stopped at this point, she kept on.

"Blasted on that very strong sake, I snapped a pic of my bro and my sis-not by blood, stop panting, Chizuru-in the midst of-their first time. My sis, by the by, is prone to scream pervert at the drop of a hat."

Natsuki began staring at Mitsu's neck.

"No marks. After all that, you still have a head?"

At that, Mitsu smiled.

"Came close. But I kept going, partly because all those people were worth it, but also because I was not going down for the whole mess. See, a lot of what we got into nearly destroyed our family. After a certain point, I knew it wasn't all on me. Enough of it was, though, that I took my debt and finagled it into refinancing everybody's. They got this pretty quick, and in the eyes of the people I care about, I moved up."

She abruptly stopped smiling.

"You two are set to move down, if it takes a little thing like me to have you acting like fools. Now, we're set to make peace. Problem is, I'm not the one you have to impress. I'll be gone soon. You two have to get with Chika, Aoi, Kaoru and Miyabi and say you will never abuse their hospitality like this again. Whatever they cough up for you, swallow it. That is all."

Natsuki shrugged, but not in contempt of Mitsu.

"So? After all this, we talk out our feelings?"

Chizuru's face showed the same question, so Mitsu grinned.

"What, you want the wolf back?"

JOURNAL

The light shrieks and recoil told me they did not want that. We got through, and they asked me how I pulled it all off, and I said stage magic, magician doesn't reveal, yada.

Then they asked me about sex. Luckily, Tina showed up and marched them off to swim practice, winking at me that she had been cornered like that before.

I got an offer from Tina for later that night. I like a good drink, but my work for Miyabi comes first.

That's what I thought, anyway.

"Actually, the job I hired you for is done with."

Mitsu felt a bit thrown. While the job had essentially been something to do and provided unquestioned money and a place to stay till she found her portal, the thought that it was all done with was not one she'd been ready for. Adding to that of course, was not yet having found her portal.

"Should I get my things together?"

She almost had no 'things' and certainly no place to take them, but even in her less responsible days, she had known when the time had come.

Or so she thought.

"Why would I be so quick to send away someone with your drive? In fact, I have contacted Mister Sakuraba as to hiring you as a full employee."

Mitsu actually had to steady herself. Her friends back home had told her they had never hated her, just some-sometimes a lot-of her actions. Kei above all had told her flatly that she had earned her way out of debt and into their respect. Yet until this point, when a group of sharp strangers in effect invited her to stay on indefinitely, she had thought herself a recipient of pity and charity by those that loved her.

"I really appreciate that, more than you know, Miyabi-San. My-path back home has fallen into question. Still trying, though."

Would she see any of them again? Would she offer solace to Shinobu, during her and Arlo's first great supposedly 'permanent' breakup? Would she see the panic Su's next breakthrough would engender? Would she get to apologize to Naru for messing with her device, while telling her to stick her gloating where Kei stuck her, on their second time? No more Kei? No more figuring out Mutsumi? But if she were stuck elsewhere, and the where was seriously else, what choice did she have?

Again, Miyabi seemed more in tune with her than she herself was.

"Well, it would be difficult to go back home, wouldn't it? Difficult, when neither that home nor the person in question seems to exist."

How, a shocked Mitsu wondered, did a woman sharp enough to catch the dimensional xenophobia of the two young girls not realize that traveling to another cosmos would mean a decided lack of verifiable ID?

*Hell, why didn't Su? She has to deal with all kinds of paperwork as an immigrant and royal representative?*

"I will swear to you, I am no criminal, Miyabi-San. But rest assured, if I told you the truth, you'd lock me up not in a jail cell, but a psycho ward."

Miyabi again raised a hand in the air, to wave off her concerns.

"I fed your information provided and photo to several law enforcement organizations, along with your lifted fingerprints. You just literally do not exist, for good or bad. Yet I have seen nothing bad from you. Even the money and goods I have left out or hidden have gone untouched. I have shown you every opportunity - some done by proprietary methods practiced by the Sakurabas for centuries, to catch the dishonest - and you have only shone, Mitsune-San. If I have a concern about you, it is not your honesty, or what you may be keeping from us for reasons all your own."

While that part was of course a huge relief, Mitsu was not so happy to hear her next words.

"My concerns are for your confidence, and apparent inability to relax. While I would never allow for someone who embraced the specious philosophy, 'Don't You Work As Hard As You Play'-why are you grinning nervously?"

"Out-out of complete agreement, Miyabi-San."

"I see. Well, however much you once may have embraced such a thing, I fear you now see work as your imbibing. Each new project is as a good bottle of liquor, each harder than the last. "

If this woman had failed to impress somehow, then Mitsu at that moment would have had to abandon such thoughts. Even though she had impressed from the start, Mitsu shook her head at just how easily Miyabi read her.

"Guilty as charged. I had to change or lose my family - who do exist by the way - forever. But isn't it better to be seen as a workaholic than an alcoholic?"

Miyabi shook her head.

"The former is more respected and tolerated than the latter. But tell me. Would you classify your loved ones as being-eccentric?"

Out of love rather than contempt, Mitsu still snarked.

"No, I'd call them a bunch of kooks."

Miyabi smiled.

"Then you really do love and miss them. Yet, if they are all so kooky, should you really be shouldering the burden for causing their time of trouble?"

Mitsu quickly caught on that Miyabi had spoken to all the people in the household, looking perhaps for consistency of stories told.

"I-did tell them to take their blaming and shove it, at first. But I-was forced by a relative to take a hard look at what I had done, and the image of me it had set in their heads. No, when things went down, we all played our part - mine and someone else's just went over the top. I didn't cause what happened in Mol-in that place, but I didn't really help it much, either. The problem I had wasn't what I caused them, but what I caused myself for myself. More than any one incident, the 'Kitsune' that I was had just pushed all the wrong buttons for way too long."

Before Miyabi could respond, Mitsu let forth with one more thing.

"Of course, people being people, they all now tell me that they miss Kitsune. Can't win, even when I do."

Miyabi nodded.

"I would ask that you continue your pursuit of hard work, but ditch the penance. You have taken the burden of your flawed path and owned up to it, which is honorable. You have taken the burden of healing your family's fracture and allowed for it, even if there were extenuating circumstances, which is praiseworthy in the extreme. You have taken the burden of a new path, which is courageous for anyone. But you also burden yourself with being the fulcrum for your family's unity, and this is as unhealthy as eating only seashells instead of the meat inside. It is also insulting to your family to think that they need your penance to avoid conflict. If they do, then they should not be together. Worst of all, Mitsune-San, you risk ending up a bitter, empty shell yourself, resentful of those who you went down this new path for, and now unable to find a project hard enough to slake your addiction."

Mitsu felt empty enough as it stood, after these words. Yet one last time, Miyabi surprised her.

"Tina-San is a handful, but she knows how to relax. I suggest you take her up on her offer. Take tomorrow off, and the next day, if needed, as well. You've earned this, and more, you need it. Each one of us needs such a break, when a project is done with."

Mitsu was incredibly grateful, not to mention inspired by these words.

"But why don't you come and join us, Miyabi-San? I never see you relax."

Miyabi revealed much about herself in this moment.

"My project, since I was a young girl, is Aoi-Chan herself. I believe that project will soon be completed, but it is not there yet. If you and Tina-San are still here when I close that chapter, then count on some top-shelf goods, liquor and food both. That is a mission accomplished that I will celebrate so hard, I may surprise the two of you."

JOURNAL

Well, Hell. She'd already surprised me a few times over. It makes me almost want to stay, just to see it.

Tina-San? Yeah. Hidden depths is one way to put it. Open depths is another.

I may not exist in this place, but someone enough like me to scare me a bit? Definitely.

"Girl, I am so glad you came, and you are gonna be twice as glad!"

Mitsu had learned a hard fact from Kanako. Now that she knew her true nature, no mortal drink was going to put her off her heels unless she wanted it to. She would have to focus to get drunk. Needless to say, this removed a good portion of the fun.

"I've been needing a night like this, Tina-San. More than you could possibly imagine."

Then again, if all she really had to do was act less inhibited, then that was unwinding too, wasn't it? Tina concurred in this without even realizing it.

"Takes a lot to get this cowgirl good and plastered, anymore. But it takes my mind off of things."

The young woman as complicated in her own way as Mitsune shrugged.

"I tried to do like you said, Mitsu. Get him to take me seriously. But the only thing besides partying hearty I take seriously is my camera. It just didn't work. Sometimes, I don't even feel like I have a chance with Kaoru."

Mitsu now felt rotten. She hadn't meant to put Tina off.

"Tina-San, I had to serious up. You're fun but responsible when the time comes. I was fun but reckless, and sometimes a little uncaring-or I told myself I didn't care. Maybe it's the same thing. I dunno. Point being, a life lesson for me is whatever you choose to make it for you. Hell, it may not even have been the right lesson for me. It's just that when harmless fun turns out to be not so harmless, you see it a different way."

Tina, who notably did not have immunity to alcohol's effects, was now staring at Mitsu.

"You-you sparkle, you know that? You kind of move in and out. Me? I don't sparkle so much, but boy oh boy do I move in and out."

Mitsu wasn't sure it was her heritage, her other-dimensional origins, or the booze that was making Tina see what she did, so she kept quite as Tina kept on.

"People always ask me what Texas is like. Where to get really good barbecue. Most folks in Texas say-in Kansas City. They ask me about the Alamo. The first I saw of the Alamo was on a Disney tape with Fess Parker as Davy Crockett and the fella played Jed Clampett and Barnaby Jones as his sidekick-even in the Disney one, they died at the end. They ask me about Annie Oakley-she was born and died in Ohio, for pity's sake! That's like asking a fisherman in Osaka about the Tokyo Metro Transit-or something."

Tina shook her head.

"My looks, my voice don't show it-but I am from the same place as everyone around here. Except I'm not. So when I go back home to Texas-I'm still not home. I'm too forward and crude over here - too prim and proper over there. Then I found this guy-all man, so polite, wouldn't jump a girl's bones just because-she really wants him to jump her bones-and I can't figure him out-I-"

Mitsu said something she was certain she would regret.

"Tina-san, can we not? I've spent a lot of time pining over a guy I call Bro and who seems content to just be my bro. Hearing you vent is only gonna get me to whining, and I can't afford that right now."

Tina seized her beer mug, and Mitsu thought certain it would soon be smashed across her face. But Tina surprised her by emptying it, then gesturing for it to be refilled.

"Sorry, Mitsu-San. I have so much, but half of what I do is go on about what I don't. I'm not Japanese. I don't have Kaoru, though I wonder if anyone will, what with him, an all-girl band, and no dates. I'm-I'm not Aoi. Probably wouldn't be Aoi, even if I were Japanese."

Mitsu felt a little safer on this front, so she didn't object this time.

"You want to be Aoi-chan?"

Tina's eyes lit up with apparent love, almost equaling the hearts in her eyes for Kaoru.

"She's the perfect Japanese lady-the ideal. You could be annoying the living hell out of her, getting so far inside her personal space charges should be filed, and she would just never tell you, or even so much as show it."

Mitsu reminded herself to say nothing to compromise the secret she had been entrusted with.

"Can't really disagree with you there. But Tina-San? She was molded to be who and what she was since she could crawl-maybe before. What she's got isn't all hers. Her mother and Miyabi-San played a big part in that. Self-sacrifice to reach that level did the rest. What we two would feel about a box of the finest chocolates she would feel about a single Hershey's Kiss. She didn't get that way just by birth."

If Tina had any more down-home philosophy about the ideal Japanese woman and what it took to become her, it was not to be heard that evening, as an interloper-interloped.

Soon to be interlopped.

"Hey, ladies? My friends and I think that you two lookers owe us a show, for being so hot and not mingling. So how about those cumbersome clothes come off, and you shake it on the table? We can make it worth your while, or we can make it difficult for you to leave."

He was appropriately snookered, greasy, fat, and all but screamed having a family at home that probably didn't miss him either. He also had a knife in his hand, which was okay, because Tina grabbed the wrist of that hand, twisted it and drove the knife into the table, and this time, she did use the beer mug as a bludgeon.

"Yes, sir. Me and Mitsu-San are just gonna go ahead and say no on that one. Thanks for your interest in our organization, but we are not recruiting. Sure as hell not in this dive."

The guy was rubbing his wrist, but showed that he really didn't get it, proven when he looked at Mitsu.

"What about you girl? You gonna let Blondie here ruin your having a good time?"

Mitsu saw what was coming, and welcomed it.

"Pal-sleep it off. When I choose to put on a show, it's for a much better class of pervert."

Tina smiled.

"How much better we talking?"

Mitsu did some calculations.

"By now, we'd be mostly nude and his face would be in our chests. He would develop the cutest stammer while trying to explain...what are you doing?"

The sleaze, who was also a sleaze when sober, had copped a feel on each of them. A joint Japanese and American task force sent him flying across the barroom.

"Don't you go and dishonor my Lone Stars, BAKA! The only color that's gonna run is the red from your neck when I cut that head off! You grab my North again, then I am kicking you in the Deep South!"

While Mitsu contemplated that cultural mish-mash, she looked around. The patrons seemed far from chastened by their forward man's beatdown.

"Tina-we better hit the trail."

But it was past that time. They began chanting.

"A show! A Show! A SHOW! A SHOW! A SHOW!"

Tina's booted feet met some of the attackers' 'Deep South' regions, just as promised. Mitsu for her part enjoyed slamming some fist into the faces of men she did not love, didn't like, and actually despised.

To her greater joy, she didn't use her other abilities even once.

JOURNAL

We wrecked that bar, and were perma-banned from ever coming back. We persuaded the owner not to press charges by asking how many local women might be able to tell stories like ours, and how he had tolerated it. Those guys will never bother a woman again.

Because we ratted them out to their wives. So much awful penance waiting for them. All of it deserved.

Me? I felt alive. Can't get drunk anymore, but I got into a fight and got banned. It had been awhile. I'd gotten blasted in New England, but this was not just relaxing. This was Kitsune unfurling.

I can't be the one Kei chose, and I can't be like Auntie. But if I make my pain-in-the-butt work for my family sometimes, I can be just another kook in a house of-eccentrics, and that's alright by me.

So, as if to comment on my umpteenth deepest-ever personal epiphany, I will now spend the day with another couple who only see each other while I walk alone.

Something's gotta give, real soon.

For just a moment, Kaoru stopped staring at Aoi, and nodded smilingly at Mitsu.

"Thanks for coming with us, Mitsu-chan."

Aoi now broke her loving gaze and chimed in.

"Yes. Every other time we go out like this, we have to wait until absolutely no one else is around, or apt to stop by. Those times are-sadly rare. But by leaving with you, no suspicion is cast."

Mitsu was determined to find her someone, but for now she was happy to see so cute a couple find happiness because of her.

"Hey, you two are the best. The fact that you think so much about how your friends feel is just great. Say-where are we? I don't think I know this part of town."

Aoi pointed to a spot over the rise.

"Are they-putting up a store on that site?"

Kaoru peered over, and nodded sadly.

"Well, it couldn't remain a vacant lot forever."

It was then that Mitsu felt her wrist-device begin to vibrate.

"No way!"

As she moved forward to her new friends' puzzlement, Mitsu felt the vibrations grow, and grinned a mile wide as the orange light came on.

"It was right here, all along? So why is this stupid thing only going off now? This thing is supposed to have a range of..."

"Mitsu-Chan?"

The light went off and the vibrations ceased, as quickly as they began. Kaoru and Aoi were now right behind her.

"Mitsu-Chan, is this spot important to you as well?"

Kaoru took note of her wrist device.

"I've wondered-is that some sort of odd digital camera? Could you take a picture of the two of us here?"

Mitsu sighed, and took a camera out of her pocket.

"Miyabi-San had me using this for inspecting the house. Smile pretty!"

The joy of her friends and the joy of photography only slightly raised Mitsu's disappointed spirit. But as the seeming false alarm continued to confuse her, her detective mode kicked in.

"I-I thought I was finally getting a message from my family. But-how is this spot important to you two?"

Aoi smiled, and pointed to an apartment building across the way.

"Kaoru-Dono lived there after he-parted ways with his family over business matters."

Aoi looked like a liar, which is to say, unsurprisingly, it was the one thing she was no damned good at. Ashamed, she felt Kaoru squeeze her hand.

"She has been a good secret-keeper, Aoi-chan. I will tell her. Mitsu-chan, I left my grandfather's home because he demanded I spurn my mother's memory. All his efforts to force me to do this made me turn my back on him forever. But in so doing, I had forgotten about my childhood betrothal to Aoi-Chan, once my friend as well. She came to seek me out and find out why the contract had been broken. I found her wandering the neighborhood, here in this very spot."

Aoi regained her composure, and nodded.

"I suppose that, to us, this is the most important spot in the entire universe. Oh, it feels good to speak of it openly-it makes keeping our silence again almost painful."

Mitsu put on her deerstalker hat one more time, and made a leap Su would have been proud of.

"Guys-let me get a shot of this special spot with no one in it, for comparison. You stand back way over there, then I'll call you back over. It's how I get my best shots."

Mitsu, a much better liar than Aoi or even most people, convinced the two, who went to approach the apartment building, though they did not enter it again as they had some months back, on their first anniversary.

"Yup. Lighting up and vibrating faster than Su sighting a banana warehouse."

JOURNAL

I had been wondering how to find the most important spot in the universe, and I'd been wondering why the hell I couldn't find it, or even a sign of it. When I found out it was in the same town I was staying in, I had images of slowly strangling our island princess.

Except now, it makes perfect sense. The reason I couldn't find this place until I was right on top of it had nothing to do with Su's gadget.

Because it wasn't the gadget at all. It was the two people who made that spot so important. During the time I've been here, they've either been right near me or near to this spot. Kaoru and Aoi were blocking my reception since they were not the spot themselves, but made the spot have meaning. Have to tell Su about that one, you know, presuming.

I want to get going so badly, even if only to have Naru bawl me out.

But on my worst day, I would never just ditch people this nice. I think I might even miss them.

TAEKO & CHIKA

"Oh, darn! I was hoping to get to know you a little better. But our work schedules always ran parallel. Well, good luck Mitsu-San. I could drive you part of the way home, if you like." Mitsu had heard decidedly unkind stories about Taeko's driving.

"Uhh-I'm being picked up across town, Taeko-chan. But Thanks!"

Chika ran up and hugged Mitsu, a little teary-eyed.

"Chika hates goodbyes, but you'll come and visit again, right Mitsu-San?"

Mitsu choked back some tears of her own. She realized she would in fact never see this girl or this group of people ever again.

"Life doesn't hold any guarantees, Chika-Chan. But you think of me, and I will always think of you. Deal?"

NATSUKI & CHIZURU

The more forward of the two showed how touched she was by this tender moment.

"But if you leave, how am I ever gonna get back at you?"

Mitsu looked Natsuki in the eye.

"You by any chance related to a Sarah McDougal?"

While the girl mused confusedly over this (for her) non sequitur, Chizuru almost meekly asked a very tender question.

"Mitsune-San? What did your friends...look like, during their first time together?"

Mitsu felt she knew the kind of answer Chizuru wanted.

"It was tender. They were so totally into each other, they never noticed me. Two people who'd made themselves miserable for three years...were finally happy."

Chizuru shook her head.

"No, I wanted movements and body part descriptions."

MAYU MIYUKI

"Well, just abruptly leaving like this will get you no recommendation to my parents' firms."

Mitsu stared.

"Why am I even talking to you?"

Mayu snorted.

"You are a rude little thing that has no sense at all of her true and proper place in this world, or the vaguest idea of how to address her betters."

Before Mitsu could respond, Mayu breathed in and blinked.

"Are you sure you have to go?"

TINA FOSTER

"Shoot, Mitsu-Chan. I was just breaking you in. I was even kind of hoping you'd stay on...when I have to go home."

Mitsu was stunned to hear this.

"Home? To Texas?"

Tina nodded.

"Maybe in a month or two. My folks really want me home. Part of me wants to be home-and part of me thinks home is right here. Life with a divided soul, right?"

Mitsu kissed Tina on the cheek, then hugged her unashamedly.

"Cowgirl, our souls aren't divided. Just a lot more interesting than some other folks. You have an eye that can take in two of the cultures on Earth that outsiders just don't get. Put that eye behind your camera, and you will be the Dolly Parton of photography - talent plus bod. How can you go wrong?"

Mitsu offered up a challenge along with a cup of comfort.

"But before you go-you have to confess to Kaoru. You'll never be able to live with yourself if you don't. Trust me."

Tina bit down at this thought.

"I'll try. But just thinking it over, I'd rather go back to that bar and give those drunks their show."

KAORU & AOI

"All we ask is that you write."

Kaoru added in.

"But don't mention-things only you know. You know?"

Mitsu now genuinely hated having to keep her status secret.

"You two will always have my best wishes, and my prayers for your dream. But what you won't have is me. I won't be able to contact you, and you won't be able to find me. My life is just weird. Which is really too bad."

She smiled at them, to remove some of the hurt from her confusing words.

"My two besties are a man and a woman who couldn't spit those three little words out for three long years. Now I meet up with two people forbidden to, and I would like nothing more than to attend your wedding, or at least be sent some pictures. But as Bogie said-where I'm going, you can't follow."

She hugged Kaoru.

"You are the second-greatest guy I've ever known. Hunky or geeky, nice is the real turn-on. Sweet helps. A man who stays true? That's priceless."

She embraced Aoi.

"You were raised to be obedient. Aoi-chan, can I step out of line for a minute?"

"Of course, Mitsu-chan. You have earned such a privilege."

Mitsu told it straight, so straight that even the Kitsune of old might have held back.

"Your father may be a good man. But the man I heard arguing with you that day will never agree to this marriage. I am really afraid you will have to choose between your parents and your dream."

Aoi pulled away, not disdainfully (never disdainfully) but clearly upset.

"I am a good and obedient daughter, as you said, Mitsu-chan."

Aoi regained her composure and smiled.

"Papa can be a tough one. So I will simply have to work all the harder to convince him that he should approve of the agreement we all made so long ago."

Mitsu said no more, but a glance from Kaoru indicated he perhaps agreed with the earlier harsh assessment.

MIYABI

The news Miyabi gave didn't truly effect Mitsu, but was in its own way disappointing.

"So Mister Sakuraba declined my application for permanent employment. Was it my lack of ID?"

Miyabi shook her head.

"Your work ethic and my recommendation overcame that hurdle easily. But-well, this is embarrassing, but I fear that you are too good an actress."

Mitsu's face showed her question, so Miyabi kept on.

"You see, when you intervened on Aoi-chan's behalf in front of Mister Sakuruba, he came to saw you as a nervous wreck on the verge of a meltdown. I was unable to convince him otherwise without revealing your deception."

Mitsu had only one regret in this.

"I'm sorry that I made you look bad in front of your employer, Kagurazaki-Dono. You gave me every opportunity while I was here, and your word on my behalf is wasted."

Miyabi did not look upset.

"It was a near thing, Mitsu-chan. You did not make me look bad. Mister Sakuruba understood why I would make the recommendation. Mama Sakuruba even seconded it, based solely on your finding that extra room, so full of family mementoes, that lightened her husband's heart."

Mitsu caught immediately that Miyabi called one surrogate parent by an employer's title, and one by a parental name.

"Well, of all the things I take with me from you folks, Miyabi-San, chief among them will be how masterfully you run this whole operation."

Miyabi smiled just a bit.

"Yet it is I who must thank you. My 'operation' was on the verge of falling apart with Mister Sakuruba's visit. You deflected that, as you said to me, masterfully. Since my first happiness is Aoi-chan's, and her first happiness is Kaoru-San, you kept our house of cards from collapsing before-before it must inevitably do so anyway. I also thank you for your advice to Aoi-chan. Yet I think it will take something unimaginable to bring her to such a realization. I bred obedience into her-but not always strength. That is something she found from him, and her love for him."

Mitsu knew the next question was too personal, but she was already too deep in to back off.

"Do you like Kaoru-San?"

Miyabi sighed.

"I didn't at first. To me, he was a fool who spurned his family for no reason. Even after I learned the reasons, and accepted that they were good ones, I was wary of his intentions. Yet over time, I came to three realizations about Kaoru Hanabishi. He would die to protect Aoi; He would kill to protect Aoi; and finally, he would die or kill merely to keep Aoi from ever knowing hurt, if he could prevent it. That was the hardest part for me, to realize that someone else could love her as much as I did, if not more. But now? While I am as loyal to the Sakurubas as Aoi, I am also an advocate for this couple, their happiness, and their dream."

Miyabi then pounced, in her own polite way.

"Your question was forward. Will you answer one of mine?"

Mitsu felt she had to allow for it.

"Of course. My big feet again."

Miyabi shook her head.

"Actually, I would have asked this even if you had never brought up a personal subject. You only made it easier for me to finally ask this-are you a real Kitsune?"

Mitsu gingerly tried to ease off answering this question.

"My old nickname? Well, I have been quite the trickster, and a bit of a pain in the ass and-that's not what you're asking, is it?"

Miyabi elaborated.

"When my parents, loyal employees to the Sakurabas, were lost to us, they took me in and gave me Aoi's upbringing as my charge-and very soon, my delight. My training for this challenged me. One day, after a hard morning of lessons, I sat and ate some rice with peppers and a little cheese. Before I could take more than a few bites, a fox came out of nowhere and stole my food. I was almost punished for lying, since this region has not seen a fox in decades. I was bitter towards this thief, for my food, and for bringing my veracity into question."

*Sounds like my Moms' family*, thought Mitsu.

Miyabi continued.

"Then, when my tenure with Aoi had truly begun, she-wandered off following a butterfly, while I had been briefly watching a cartoon about a baby named Mindy who-wandered off following a butterfly. Like that cartoon's faithful dog, I would surely be punished for my non-cartoon failure. Yet, just as I had lost all hope and despair ate into me, a woman walked up with Aoi in her arms, safe and sound. When I turned to thank this woman after putting Aoi in her stroller, I found the woman gone and that same fox in her place-and it did the oddest thing."

*Please don't let that be a common trait.*

"The fox-rolled its upper eye muscles at me, almost like the comedian Groucho Marx. I never saw either that fox or that woman again, and Mama Sakuruba urged me to not speak of it."

Miyabi now showed very wide eyes, chock-full of wonder.

"Was it you?"

Mitsu shrugged.

"Why-would you even think that?"

Miyabi now did her own eye-roll.

"I am a creature of habit, Mitsu-San. But while hidebound, I am not blind. I've seen things, since you arrived. Heard things from the others-including two very chastised young girls who now admire you. But I suppose you're right, and such childhood dreams are foolish."

Mitsu sighed, and gave in to someone she felt she could trust. The wolf appeared to a startled Miyabi, and then shifted back to Mitsu.

"Lady, never give up on your dreams. But I'm pretty sure that Kitsune wasn't me. Kind of like finding out Santa Claus is real, huh?"

Miyabi had a slightly misty look as she handed Mitsu her final pay envelope.

"Actually, according to Kaoru-San, Santa is very real-and she looks just like Aoi-chan."

JOURNAL

Finally ready to go. The only one I couldn't say goodbye to was the ferret. Cute little fella. But as I hit my 'hot spot', not only did I see Uzume, but you know what they say about what happens if you travel far enough?

"Uzume-chan? Should you be out this deep into the city?"

The ferret was in mortal peril, to Mitsu's eyes, and might mean a delay in her departure. Right behind Uzume was a more direct concern.

"Uzume, run-fox!"

But the predator not only made no move on the ferret, it stood on its hind legs and shifted into a familiar looking woman. One known to Mitsu-every time she looked in the mirror. The shifted Kitsune spoke.

"You're not from around here, are you?"

Mitsu thought she was being pranked.

"Why do you look like me?"

The Kitsune nodded.

"I was going to ask you the same question."

The Kitsune turned and looked at the ferret.

"Thanks for finding her so fast, Uzume. We'll chase squirrels tomorrow."

Uzume winked at Mitsu, then darted off home. The Kitsune sighed.

"You-you didn't turn into a female ferret, did you? Oh, girl. You have a stalker for eter-nity."

Mitsu used what she knew to 'scan' the Kitsune.

"You're me if I were pure Kitsune."

The other nodded, and sniffed the air.

"You're part godling-but you were raised by, around and with Humans. Wow. I can never be around Humans for very long. Too high maintenance."

Mitsu wanted to move on, but certain moments only come once, and this was twenty of those combined into one.

"Is Kanako your sister here, too?"

The Kitsune puzzled at this.

"We don't really do the whole naming thing over our way. I do have a sister-but she's a bit-well-you know, in families-"

Mitsu nodded.

"You mean she's an eccentric."

"No, I mean she's a KOOK! Her-she goes with Humans. Married a baker, of all things."

*Finally nabbed Kei, eh, Kana-chan? Or-are you Motoko, here and did you get with this world's Seta, Arlo-ouch. Stop it. Head hurt now.*

Mitsu realized something she felt she had to ask.

"Are you the Kitsune that Miyabi saw when she was a kid?"

The Kitsune looked suddenly bitter.

"I keep watch over her-from a distance. Her folks-they swerved to avoid me when I went out on a road that my clan told me to avoid. Most Humans would have barreled right over me. That's-why she doesn't have any folks. So her life, and any lives in her charge, are now my responsibility, even to Kaoru and Aoi's grandkids. Thinking things through-not our people's strong point. Guess I'm not like you-Miss Responsibility."

Mitsu was feeling an infinity of awkward moments.

"Well, sister-err, me-I have to keep on my journey. Been nice."

The Kitsune sniffed her wrist-wear.

"Interesting gadget-but if you're part-a-god, why don't you just use your senses and focus on who or where you want to get to yourself? Way easier. By the way, do the Kitsune mothers in your universe also lay on the guilt with that lame 'cosmic neighbors are watching us' crap? Who would even fall for that?"

Suppressing an angry groan, Mitsu gave her other self a baseball cap used in the 'Keitaro Hunt' as a souvenir, then they parted ways.

*Hmm-can I do that? First person I'd want to find is Naru. She's my oldest friend, and I want to nip this thing about my touching her device in the bud. Alright-focus on my version of Naru Narusegawa-*

Mitsu reached out with her senses, and suddenly doubled over in pain.

"Naru? Where are you? Because it feels like-you must be in some kind of Hell!"

Standing back up, Mitsu reached out again.

*Can't find her-but someone else is sure thinking hard about her-and there's no gut-punch pain from that one, so here goes...Aoi, Kaoru, Miyabi, Tina and company-it's been real, but not my real, so take care-damn I wish I knew how their lives turn out-ehh. It's not like it's a book I could buy at the local Barnes & Noble. Some things, you just never find out. Well, I'm finding out who's got Naru on the brain-is it you, Bro? If it is, I'm plopping a big wet one on your lips-and maybe elsewhere?*

Mitsu did not have to endure her previous rough transit as she entered the new world.

"Still Earth-still looks like Japan. That's always good."

Behind her, a voice emerged.

"You?"

Mitsu turned and smiled.

"You?"

END CHAPTER ONE

NEXT CHAPTER : LIVING NEXT DOOR WITH MUTSUMI (TONA-GURA!)