Chapter 4

Day after day, Keiichi and the two goddesses worked on strengthening his powers. It was apparent that Keiichi was a natural for casting Earth spells. After succeeding at levitating one rock, the goddesses had him trying to levitate two rocks and then three. All these tasks Keiichi managed with little trouble. They then told him to try and keep four rocks in the air while Urd and Belldandy tried to distract him. Urd threw lightning bolts at him while Bell caused violent wind storms to blow all around him. The first few times, his concentration had broken while he was trying to dodge Urd's thunderbolts and Belldandy's winds kept blowing the rocks this way and that and he had lost track of where they all were while dealing the goddess' distractions, but Keiichi was eventually able to keep all his rocks in the air in the face of Urd's strongest electrical storms and Belldandy hurling tornado strength winds at him.

The next lesson was self-defense. Urd tried to attack Keiichi by casting thunderbolts, while Keiichi tried to use his Earth powers to defend himself. He raised one of his boulders to block the spell. While he was able to block the first attack, he didn't expect an immediate second bolt and got the shock of his life when Urd's attack hit him. While it hurt like hell, It didn't cause lasting damage. Keiichi got thrown across the courtyard, but got up quickly, only to face Belldandy. She looked at him with fire in her eyes and, despite being her lover, she showed Keiichi no quarter, raising a powerful gust of wind, directing it at Kei, but he blunted her attack by lifting a boulder and hurling it at her, which distracted her long enough for him to cause one of the trees to wrap its branches around her and hold her tight. Bell struggled against the tree limbs, but Keiichi's concentration in willing the tree to hold her was resolute. She gave up and went limp, which caused Keiichi to release his grip and catch his goddess as she fell into his arms. He laid her down on the grass and tried to wake her up.

"Belldandy!, Belldandy! Are you all right?"

Urd looked her over and said "Yeah, she's all right, she just went dormant. Interesting, Keiichi, we haven't even taught you how to use plants yet, and you thought of that all on your own, good thinking."

Belldandy woke up "Very good, Keiichi, that was a fine defense, well played."

"You're okay aren't you?"

"Oh, I'm fine."

"That look in your eyes, just before you attacked me. I've never seen you so mad."

"I wasn't really mad, I had just gotten into the exercise and let my competitive spirit come out."

"Sheesh, If that's your 'competitive spirit', I wanna make sure I'm not on the wrong side when you're really pissed off."

Belldandy laughed at Keiichi, kissed him and said, "There's no chance of that happening. Also I did it so you could get an idea of how fiercely an opponent will attack you. If we're going to practice, we have to do so as realistically as possible. This is not a game, Keiichi. Demon attacks are very serious, so we can't afford to be anything less than fully prepared."

That last point had been driven home in more than a few ways. He remembered the Lord of Terror incident and the Angel Eater battle as well. Hild and Marller held nothing back, and threw everything they had at Keiichi, Lind and Skuld. He resolved that he was never going to be caught short again. He was going to show these goddesses that he could defend himself, them, and his home against the nastiest of demons.

The deities went back to work honing Keiichi's powers and were so involved in their activities that they failed to notice someone, or something watching them. High up in one of the cherry trees hidden by its beautiful white blossoms sat a small otherworldly creature. This creature looked like a goddesses angel, but had a more sinister appearance to it. It had pale white skin, tiny horns protruding out of the top of its head, black wings and a forked tongue darted in and out of its toothy mouth like that of a snake. It made no noise, and caused no alarm. It's mission: simply to watch, and report.

The creature watched Belldandy, Urd and Keiichi all day long, never giving away its position and even with their enhanced senses, the three never detected the little visitor. When it had seen enough to make its report, it silently took wing and flew away.

On the outskirts of Nekomi City, in a condemned apartment building slated for demolition. She sat at a table waiting for her familiar to return. Her hands drumming the tabletop impatiently. She mumbled disgustedly under her breath. Her mind was eager to digest the information provided by the familiar as to what her nemeses were up to. She had gotten word from her boss that there was unusual levels of energy coming from the temple in the last week and she was asked, no, ordered to check it out. It had been a while since she had been given orders from her superior, and her last attempt to cause trouble for those pesky goddesses had gone horribly awry, and had gotten her in boiling hot water with the boss. But this time, she was determined to restore her good name.

That name was Marller. She was a First Class Demon with an unlimited license. She was tasked with the never ending job of trying to increase the shares of humans accepting contracts with demons over ones accepting contracts with goddesses. Since time began, goddesses and demons were in an eternal battle to arrange contracts with the human race. While goddesses provided humans with wishes free of charge, demons would enter into a contract with a human for any reason or desire...as long as they got something back in return. Demons maintained that their contracts were more in line with what human nature expected. A delicate balance existed and both sides worked hard to push it in their favor. Marller had been locked in a struggle with Belldandy, Urd and Skuld since they arrived on Earth to live with Keiichi. She had tried multiple times to get rid of the trio, but to no avail. She was in a foul mood and, needing a victory, had sent her lackey to the temple to see what he could see.

Her request was answered a few seconds later when the familiar flew through the window and landed on the table. It hopped onto her shoulder and whispered in her ear.

"Hmmm...what?...what?...I don't believe it!...Damn! I have to get over there and check it out. But how to do so without being spotted. I guess I can hide in one of the trees." Buoyed by the news that her familiar revealed, Marller took to the skies and flew to the temple. She lucked out when she got to Tarikihongan, there wasn't anyone in the courtyard to see her arrive. Keiichi and the goddesses had gone inside for some refreshments. She landed in the very same tree her familiar had used for its stakeout and she cast a glamour spell to conceal her form. Sitting on a branch with cherry twigs poking her all over, Marller was not thrilled with her hiding place, and that only served to piss her off even more, but she was willing to put up with it if she could find out the source of the unusual energy readings. "C'mon out Belldandy. Where are you?" Marller mumbled to herself.

She had been sitting in the tree for five minutes when Keiichi and Belldandy came back outside to practice some more. They were completely unaware of Marller's presence. Bell took off and flew up high into the air and descended rapidly towards Keiichi who was standing on the ground. As she flew out of the sun, she shot powerful pulses of energy at Keiichi, who raised a wall of rock to shield him from the blasts. In return he shattered the rock wall and shot it at Belldandy who deftly dodged the attack and deflected the shrapnel with her own wind storms. Keiichi lifted a rock and sent it flying towards his goddess who used a "wind knife" spell to slice the rock in two. She then tried to seal Keiichi in a "wind cage" spell, and nearly did it before he was able to disrupt that spell by using his control of wind to blow a wave of water from the koi pond towards Belldandy. While he still could not control the water directly, he could use his limited wind abilities to push the water into a wave form.

Marller was watching all this in total disbelief. She could not believe what she was seeing. Not only did it appear that Keiichi was attacking Belldandy, but that he was using magic to do so. But wasn't Keiichi human?, she reasoned. Keiichi's not a god! How the hell can he use magic? But then she took a closer look at Keiichi's face and that told her everything. She saw the crescent moon mark on his forehead and nearly fell out of her blind. Son of a bitch, he's a GOD? But how? She HAD to get this information to her boss and fast. She didn't care that she got caught, she had found out the source of the energy coming from the temple! She flew up out of the tree with all speed and made for the sky.

Keiichi saw Marller bolt from the tree. "Belldandy! It's Marller, she saw us and she's trying to get away!" He immediately sent one of his practice boulders flying towards the escaping demon, who was rising fast. Belldandy attempted to give chase, but she was too late as Marller disappeared in a flash of light. "Ha Ha! Too slow, Belldandy!"

Chapter 5

After flying back to her apartment complex. Marller cast a demonic access spell to connect her to Niflheim, the world of the demons. Her license gave her free authority to talk to her boss without having to deal with underlings. Marller's evil heart leaped with a mix of surprise and joy as she waited for the spell to connect. No doubt, this news would win her favor with the boss. "C'mon, c'mon!" she grumbled. Finally the spell connected and she could see the face of her boss looking back at her. A face that no matter how many times Marller had seen it never ceased to send a chill down her back.

Hild.

She was the head of the demonic realm as well as the mother of the goddess named Urd. Like her daughter, Hild's hair was platinum blond and her skin was the color of polished bronze. She wore rings on all ten fingers, multiple bracelets around her wrists and bangles in her hair to restrain the enormous power that she possessed. It was said that Hild could wield as much power as Kami-sama himself. Like Urd she was not afraid to wear clothing that emphasized her cleavage and mile-long legs. She was lust personified, and she knew it. Hild shared the same temperament as Urd. Moody, vain, impulsive, cunning, and utterly unpredictable. Means driven to the exclusion of the ends. Only while Urd had her goddess side to balance out her demonic impulses, Hild had no such counterweight. She was demon through and through. And she used all the weapons in her arsenal in her battle against Keiichi and the goddesses.

"Marller, dear." Hild purred with a voice as creamy as it was chilling. " I do hope you brought me some good news. I'm not in the mood for games."

"Yes, Lady Hild." Marller stammered. "I have very good news. I have discovered the origins of the unusual energy coming from the temple." The frightened demon told Hild the results of her reconnaissance. Hild was not impressed. "I thought you said you had good news. I noticed that those energy readings were familiar." Hild retorted. "If anything, this makes our objective more of a challenge."

Marller was at a loss for words. "Marller," Hild continued, "The fact that Keiichi is now a God makes them that much harder to defeat. He may not have much power now, but you do know what happened when Keiichi and Belldandy spent their first night together, sexually speaking don't you?" Marller stared blankly at her boss. "It means that they are magically coupled together. They can share their powers to become stronger than their individual strengths. Hopefully, they haven't figured that part out yet. Otherwise..."

Marller interrupted, "So what do we do about this, Lady Hild?"

Hild ignored the rudeness of Marller's outburst and said, "We can still move on with the plan I have concocted." With that she stepped aside to let Marller see what she had been working on. Behind Hild on a stone slab lay a figure that looked like someone the demon knew very well. The figure was unconscious and naked. "Is that...?" Marller asked.

Hild stopped her with a stare. "No, Marller, it looks like her, but it is actually a demon minion of mine who has offered her services to the cause. I have cast upon her a glamour spell that makes her look like our target even down to her goddess symbol. She is totally indistinguishable from her. She will infiltrate Heaven, take control of Yggdrasil and will disconnect those goddesses from the system, leaving them weak and powerless. It is then we will attack and rid the planet of them for good." Hild seemed full of herself, "A sound plan if I do say so, don't you agree?"

Marller gulped and quickly agreed with the demon boss. "So, Lady Hild, how will she disconnect the goddesses from Yggdrasil. The system admins up there will be watching everything that goes on."

Hild looked at Marller as if she was addressing a dim child and held up a crystal clear cylinder the size of a tube of lipstick. "With this."

"And what is that?" Marller asked incredulously.

"It's a data cylinder loaded with a powerful shadow program. Once run, it will take control of the system that monitors the energy flow to the goddesses, disconnect them from Yggdrasil and present to the system admins a status screen that shows that the goddesses are still connected. The program will then erase itself from memory, leaving the goddesses and Keiichi separated from Yggdrasil. The only way that they can be reconnected is by completely rebooting the major system that controls the energy transfer subsystem. And with Yggdrasil being as complicated as it is, a reboot of that system should take at least a day, which should give us plenty of time to dispatch those goddesses."

Marller was overjoyed. "A perfect plan, Lady Hild! I couldn't have done better myself."

"Yes Marller, I know it's perfect and I also know that you couldn't have done better. But think about it, who better to create a likeness of her daughter than her own mother?" Hild said as she stroked the hair of the unconscious minion disguised as Urd.

Chapter 6

Belldandy and Keiichi hurried into the temple and found Urd in the Tea Room with a cup of sake. She had just about to take a sip when Belldandy interrupted. "Urd! It's Marller, she was spying on us. We tried to chase her, but she got away!" Belldandy said excitedly.

Urd slammed down the cup sloshing sake all over the table. "Damn!, I had a feeling that she would be up to something. And where Marller is, Hild won't be too far behind. I'm guessing that all the magical activity around the temple in the past week caught their attention. Whatever those two are planning, it will be trouble."

"Keiichi", Urd continued, "Look's like you're getting thrown into the fire before you're ready. We have no choice but to get ready and defend the temple."

Keiichi responded, "Maybe we can get Skuld to upgrade Banpei for us. He usually is pretty successful against Marller. Come to think of it, I haven't seen or heard her around lately."

Urd looked at Keiichi, shook her head, and said "Well, if you two love birds would come out of your nest once in a while, you'd have known that our dear Skuld had to go back to Heaven to take care of some system maintenance on Yggdrasil. She's part of the team that had to reprogram the wish servers so they would no longer accept crazy wishes like yours that started this whole adventure in the first place."

Keiichi and Belldandy looked sheepishly at each other, and said together, "Sorry."

Urd said "Can't say I blame you. It's kind of nice not hearing that high pitched whine when I'm trying to watch TV, or having to deal with random explosions all the time. I swear that girl can be a holy terror."

Even though Skuld eventually accepted the fact that Keiichi and Belldandy were going to be inseparable, and she was finally convinced that she could still have her favorite big sister around as much as she wanted, she still wasn't totally thrilled about the whole idea. Fortunately, she had never walked in on Keiichi and Belldandy while they were...indisposed, or else the screams will still be echoing through the temple a week later. For that reason and to insure his personal safety, Keiichi decided that it would be better if Belldandy continued to use the Tea Room as her personal space, even though she expressed a desire to move into Keiichi's room with him. He wanted to keep the peace as much as possible. So if and when Bell and Kei were in the mood to be amorous, Bell would slip from the Tea Room into his room after Skuld had fallen asleep. But since Skuld had been in Heaven all week, Belldandy just preferred to stay with Keiichi in his room all the time.

"We're going to have to increase our training and be ready for an attack that can come at any time." Belldandy said. "I'll start working with Keiichi on more advanced spells. Urd, if you can find out anything that shows what Marller and Hild are up to, let us know."

With that, the goddesses and Keiichi split up to prepare for what lay ahead. Kei and Bell went back out into the courtyard to get in some extra training. Keiichi responded well to the intense battle scenarios Belldandy created. His Earth spells came easier and more natural to the point that he could call up even the highest level spells strictly on reflex alone without even thinking about the intense calculations and compiling needed. His ability to control Wind spells improved remarkably, but he still had a problem with the finer control. Too many times he would try to generate a gentle breeze but ended up almost blowing the roof off the temple. But overall his magical abilities improved steadily with each passing day.

Later on that night as Keiichi and Belldandy prepared for bed, he looked over at his goddess lying next to him and said, "Belldandy, I'm nervous. I've dealt with Marller and Hild before as a human, but never as a God. I wonder if I have the power to stand against them."

Belldandy sat up, looked at Keiichi and answered. "Keiichi, I have never seen a God or a Goddess embrace their powers as quickly as you have. It becomes so natural to you. It took me years, even centuries to get to where I am today. And I still have much more to learn. I am amazed by your abilities, Keiichi. You still have a long way to go and battling Marller and Hild won't be easy. But I have every confidence that you'll be all right." She then leaned over Keiichi and put her face close to his saying gently., "After all, you have me by your side."

Keiichi said "I guess I can say that I'm successful so far because I have a great teacher", saying this as he stroked Belldandy's cheek. The goddess sighed at his touch and nuzzled her face against his hand. Her skin so warm and soft. "This teacher has been so supportive and kind. She's challenged me in so many ways and even when I make a mistake, she's never mad at me. I would have never been able to do this stuff if it hadn't been for her." Bell leaned in to give her man a kiss when Keiichi said, "Yeah, that Urd is one great teacher." which caused Belldandy to lightly scold; "Oh, Keiichi! as she playfully slapped his face. Bell laid her head on Keiichi's chest as he drew her closer to him and put his arms around her. She responded by snuggling ever closer and saying "Hmmmm. You're so warm, I'm so happy that I'm where I've always wanted to be. Right here, right now with the man that I love."

He could feel both of their hearts beating once again in perfect unison. The week since he came back from Heaven was the most blissful and relaxing time since Belldandy came to live with him. Their relationship which had been at such a standstill for so long moved ahead in giant steps over the course of only one week. He counted himself as the luckiest man alive. He held Belldandy tightly and never wanted to let her go.

Keiichi remembered all the times that Belldandy battled so many foes to protect him, and he could only stand by and watch helplessly while she put her life on the line to save him. And in all that time she never complained, or felt put upon. She did it with a smile and maintained that it was her duty as a goddess under contract to defend him. At first, it was because of the contract that Belldandy kept him safe, but as she came to know and eventually to love Keiichi, she did it because she could not bear to lose him.

He often felt guilty that he was not able to return the favor. After all, he's the man. It's his job to protect the woman that he loved. But how could a human protect an all-powerful goddess who could destroy the world with a single spell? Even though he knew that he couldn't, that question ate at him and wounded his pride.

But now, because of the love and devotion that Belldandy showed him, and his fervent desire to stand by the woman, the goddess that he finally confessed his love to on the grandest of all stages, he was now able to give back to Belldandy that which she had given to him. He could now fight alongside her. No longer would she have to defend him alone. Now instead of her always being by his side, or him always being by her side, they could go forward together, as equals, side by side.