Hi, everyone. As promised - Chapter Four.

And thanks for the positive reviews. After the amount of time I've spent on writing this series over the last few months, and on my other stories as well, I certainly appreciate each and every one of them.

And now, on with the story:

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LOVE HINA: FLIGHT OF THE HORNET
CHAPTER FOUR

By Doctor-T and Major Mike Powell III

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As the alarmed Kyle tried to make up his mind whether to flee the premises or not, we must now return to the current whereabouts of the severely stung young landlord of Kyle's afore-mentioned madhouse. Which location of said protagonist was now down on the first floor of the Hinata Apartments. To be precise, he was in the women's changing room, next to the entrance leading out to the onsen.

There in the seclusion and privacy of the changing room, the very sore Keitaro Urashima was at that very moment laying on his stomach on a towel covered bench, his pants and underwear folded in a neat pile next to him. As to what he was doing in the women's changing room without any pants on – which would have been a suicidal thing for him to have done back when he first arrived at the Hinata Apartments – this time Keitaro had a perfectly valid reason for his somewhat strange actions. For the grimacing young landlord was right in the middle of having his wounded butt and pride being expertly tended to by the very capable – and most importantly at that moment - very gentle hands of one Miss Mutsumi Otohime.

Before accompanying Keitaro downstairs to get the first aid kit from reception, and then taking him in here to treat his exceedingly painful hornet sting, Mutsumi had thoughtfully dressed in a very special outfit for the occasion. As they hurriedly put their clothes back on – very gingerly in the case of Keitaro's pants - she had quickly donned directly over her previously naked body, the very short and most revealing white, cosplay nurse outfit she had borrowed from Kitsune a couple of days ago, for reasons that shall be left up to the imagination. And the fact that the very short outfit clung to her shapely body like a second skin, as well as being unbuttoned down to an indecently low level below her swelling bust, served to help keep Keitaro's mind off the pain he was in almost as well as any normal painkiller would have done.

After washing the angry, red swelling in the middle of Keitaro's right buttock with cold water and antiseptic soap, Mutsumi had just put an ice pack onto it, and the squawk that he had let out as the freezing cold bag touched the incredibly tender spot was fit to wake the dead.

"Oh, my? Would you like another ibuprofen tablet for the pain, Kei-kun," Mutsumi asked him with concern. "You've only taken one 200 mg tablet so far, so you're allowed one more right now if you need it for your 'ouchie'."

"That…would be nice," Keitaro gritted through clenched teeth, sweatdrops dotting his head like he had been caught in a shower of rain. "Tell me again what this ice pack does to help me, or is this just some new, exquisite form of torture that Naru bribed you to do to me?"

"Oh? Fu, fu, fu. Well, that stays on your poor sore bottom for fifteen minutes," the turtle girl informed her discomforted boyfriend as she gave him a second ibuprofen tablet and a glass of water to take it with. "The ice will help to reduce the swelling and stop the burning sensation. Then I'm going to apply a paste of baking soda and water to help counteract the venom in your wound, before covering it with a nice, clean, sterile cloth and a bandage."

"And with regards to getting rid of the burning sensation, the sooner the better," Keitaro heartily agreed, after quickly gulping down the tablet and draining the glass of water. He handed the empty glass back to Mutsumi, and then curiosity entered his tone as he asked, "So, Mutsumi, tell me. How do you know all this about first aid for insect stings, anyway?"

"I'm a Tokyo University graduate, just like you are, Kei-kun," Mutsumi informed him with a smile. "I know a lot of things!" She laughed, her twin hair antennae bobbing merrily, and then added, "Besides, back home on Okinawa, because we live on a small island off the mainland and I have such a large family, my mother is an expert on home remedies. She taught me how to treat hornet stings way back when I was little!"

"Oh, okay. That makes sense, I guess." Keitaro smiled back at his devoted nurse, then he reached out with his left hand again and grasped Mutsumi's near one reassuringly. "Have I thanked you yet for looking after me right now? I really appreciate it, Mutsumi."

Mutsumi blushed slightly, and squeezed his hand back. "Don't mention it, Kei-kun," she happily replied. "This is nothing that any good girlfriend wouldn't do for her beloved man. I love you, and I want to service you in all ways from now on."

Now it was Keitaro's turn to go red, and not only because of her rather daring choice of words. Mutsumi had leant forward as she was talking, and it was blatantly obvious from the amount of cleavage she was showing that she hadn't bothered to put her underwear back on under the short nurse outfit before they had left the landlord's room.

"Urm! Thanks," he managed to get out, fighting to avert his eyes from her most impressive charms back to her face again. "I love you, too."

"Say, Kei-kun? When we were upstairs before in your room, did you hear anything unusual coming from somewhere above us, just before you got stung," Mutsumi then asked him, a thoughtful expression appearing on her face at the puzzling memory.

Keitaro propped himself up on one elbow, a quizzical look on his own bespectacled face at the surprising question from his girlfriend.

"Hmm? I really don't remember," he mused. "What exactly did you hear, anyway?"

"I thought that I heard someone yelling, and then a faint cracking sound coming at maybe ten second intervals after that. I wonder what it could have been?"

Keitaro scratched his head, a frown appearing on his forehead. "Beats me? And the sound was coming from above us, you say? That's Kanako's room, so maybe she was responsible? I dunno."

"Ah, well? It probably wasn't anything important," the turtle lady remarked, rising up from her seat to check on the swelling on her companion's butt. She lifted up the ice pack and peered down at his wound. "Hmm? The redness seems to be subsiding a bit already. Ten minutes to go, then I'll dry the spot and apply the baking soda paste. How are you feeling right now, Kei-kun?"

"Ah? Aheh-heh! Well, I can only feel my left buttock, the other one is totally numb," Keitaro admitted, a little embarrassed at what he was saying to his most attractive companion. "Except for a sharp stinging right in the middle of it, that is."

"So the stinging isn't feeling any worse? And you're not feeling dizzy, or short of breath, or anything like that?" Mutsumi wanted to know, a serious look appearing on her face for once. "It's really important that you tell me if you do have any of those symptoms, Kei-kun."

"No, I'm actually feeling a lot better," Keitaro told her, gratitude in his voice, causing Mutsumi to sigh with relief and relax again. "The sting doesn't hurt nearly so much now as it did before, either."

"That's great, Kei-kun! Well, now we just have to wait a few more minutes until I can dry the sting site off, put the paste onto it, and then I'll bandage it up and we'll be all done."

"'Phew!' Yeah, I'll certainly be glad when the pain from this sting is all gone." Keitaro grinned ruefully from behind his glasses at the beautiful, cheerful, watermelon-loving nurse imposter whom was taking care of him. "Darned hornet! I wonder why it came into my room in the first place?"

"Who knows? Maybe it just has good taste in men, like I have?"

"Oh, very funny! And it didn't hug me, it stung me, remember?"

Mutsumi smiled mischievously down at her prone, chuckling partner. Then her hands moved up to the nearly totally unbuttoned front of her tight and revealing nurse costume. Pulling the top, right side corner of it back, she fully exposed her huge, delicious, big-nippled right breast to the surprised but lascivious gaze of her suddenly wide-eyed and panting boyfriend.

"In the meantime, if you do get bored with the waiting, Kei-kun, you can always play with this?" she giggled playfully. "Fu, fu, fu!"

An incredibly good suggestion that Keitaro took up with alacrity.

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Twelve minutes later, Mutsumi straightened back up from Keitaro's fully treated, freshly bandaged bottom, a satisfied look - for several reasons, not just the obvious one - on her still slightly flushed face.

"There you go, I've finished. Fu, fu, fu. So, how does it feel?"

"Ah-heh, heh? Well, actually, Mutsumi, the sting still hurts like heck," the ex-ronin truthfully replied, directing a sheepish grin back over his shoulder at the smiling turtle lady. "But it's one hundred percent better than what it was before, though. Thank you! Still, even after the great job you've just finished doing on it for me, I probably won't be able to sit down for a week!"

Little did Keitaro know that he wasn't the only one on the premises who wouldn't be able to do that particular action. As the teary eyed Naru, now curled up on her side in her dank basement room, holding a big bag of crushed ice gingerly against her own well-smacked bottom, could have at that moment testified.

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Despite his original intention to flee this den of iniquity post-haste, in the end Kyle had remained inside the huge old building. Quickly realizing that the red-dressed psycho with the lethal strap wasn't going to pursue him, as he understandably feared she might, the very relieved Kyle quickly flew up to land upside down on the ceiling of the hallway. After a spell up there to calm himself down and to think about what best to do now, the on-edge hornet had finally talked himself into continuing on with his exploration of the vast human hive he had entered.

But with a lot of extra caution from now on, Kyle promised himself as he dropped down into the air again, and then continued on his way down the lengthy third-floor corridor in front of him.

As he hummed past the slightly ajar door to Room 302, the now extra-wary giant hornet abruptly air braked, then alighted on the recently waxed wooden floor outside the entrance. A strange, sweet odor drifting on a current of warm air out of the shadowy room had suddenly grabbed his attention. This new smell was vastly different from the original one that had first attracted him into the Hinata Apartments, but it bore investigation, all the same – provided that he was absolutely sure it was safe for him to do so, of course.

Kyle quickly scurried across the polished floorboards to the partial concealment of the wooden doorframe. After taking a deep breath, he warily peeked one compound eye around its vertical edge to carefully scrutinize the dim interior beyond for any signs of lurking danger before deciding whether or not to enter.

Inside the darkened, spartanly furnished room – poorly lit at this time because the window drapes had been drawn shut against the intense heat of the afternoon sun - all seemed to be quiet and still. Even better, as far as Kyle could tell, the shadowy room appeared to be completely empty of any dangerously unpredictable humans. And the only sounds he could currently hear were those from the ubiquitous cicadas chirping in the trees outside the huge building.

"Phew! So far, so good," he muttered to himself. "I don't see too well in deep shade like this, but there's certainly nothing stirring in there at the moment."

Once he was one hundred percent sure that the coast really was clear, Kyle let out a second sigh of relief. Then he began inching his way into the cavernous interior of the room, backtracking the scent trail to its as yet unknown origin - only to freeze stock-still with alarm as the sound of a loud yawn suddenly broke the silence!

'Gulp!' So there is a human in here, after all, the immediately apprehensive hornet thought, the insect equivalent of chills now racing up his chitin-covered back as he crouched down against the floor in an effort the become as inconspicuous as possible. And not all that far away, either! But where did that sound come from? I can't see anyone in here!

During his careful scrutiny of the darkened premises prior to entry, Kyle had previously noticed an already made up, though disheveled futon, which was spread out on the polished floor in the middle of the room. He had previously thought it to be unoccupied, but next second, right in front of Kyle's startled eyes, the mounded up duvet covering the bed began to stir. Then a bare arm flopped out from under the bedcover, striking the floor with a loud thump and nearly scaring the frightened hornet out of his already highly strung wits!

"'Hic!' Oh, Kami-sama, my head hurts…" A feminine voice loudly moaned out a couple of seconds later. "Damn that sake of Kitsune's! I knew that I shouldn't have imbibed so much of it before we went back to bed after lunch. Ohhhh…!"

"Heh. What's that, Motoko?" a second female voice with a noticeable Kansan accent then spoke up from the exact same location as the first speaker. "Hey, are ya feelin' all right, Sugah?"

"'Groan!' No, I'm not, Kitsune," the first hidden person rebuked the other. "I have a headache, and my throat feels all dry. I think that we both should drink in moderation from now on, if at all."

"That's funny," the second voice laughed. "Ah feel just fine! Don't worry, Motoko, now that we're together, sore heads for you from drinkin' will soon become a thing of the past. Ah'll have ya knockin' liquor back like a pro in no time."

"That's just what I'm worried about. Oh? Excuse me for a moment. There's something that I have to do, right now."

"What? You're not gonna throw up, are ya? Or are ya just gonna hit the can?"

"Neither! We accidentally left my door slightly open after lunch, and I'm just going to get up and shut it."

"Huh? Is that all," the second girl replied in an unconcerned tone. "Don't worry about it, gal."

"But someone might come along and see us through the gap," the first girl protested as she rolled over and sat up in the unmade bed, her long, straight, black hair falling forward over the eye-catching curves of her bare shoulders and well-formed breasts as she did so. "It is the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday, after all. Other people are around, you know."

"So? Let them! It's about time that the others found out about us, anyway. We can't keep it a secret from them forever, can we?"

"Yes…I do know that," the black haired girl who had spoken first grudgingly conceded to her nonchalant companion. "But I would rather break the news that you and I are now partners to our friends on our terms, not have them suddenly stumble upon us in bed together, and discover our secret that way!"

Kitsune sat up as well, her voluptuous bare breasts bouncing gently as she moved, and then waved a languid hand at her anxious lover. "Ah, maybe you're right," she remarked. "Go right ahead and close the door, Sugah, if it'll make you feel better. And pass me that unopened sake bottle over by the wall there while you're at it, willya?"

"What? You still want more sake?" Motoko rebuked the older girl with disbelief in her stern voice as she rose gracefully up out of the bedcovers; her tall, lithe, totally nude body now fully exposed to the facetted eyes of the cowering hornet. "Don't you think that you've had quite enough already, what with last night, and then your session after lunch, just before we went back to bed?"

"Naw. And this one's only a 720 mL bottle, so that's only four drinks worth for mah choko here." Kit gestured at Motoko with her empty cup. "It'll be gone in no time."

"But-?" the exasperated Motoko started to protest.

"And you shouldn't be complainin', either," Kit giggled, a twinkle appearing in her half-open eyes. "It puts me in the mood for you-know-what." She beckoned playfully at the kendo girl. "So hurry up with mah liquor, and get back under the sheets. Heh-heh-heh! Once Ah've had a couple of shots, Ah'll do somethin' to you that'll make ya forget all about ya sore head and mah drinkin', see if Ah don't!"

Motoko's face went bright red at the inference. Snatching up the bottle of rice wine, she passed it to her chuckling girlfriend. Then the now flustered girl slipped back under the duvet again, without even closing the door to her room, as she had originally intended to do.

"That's the spirit," Kit encouraged the glowering kendo girl, pouring sake into her cup, and then she filled Motoko's own choko, as well. "Here, d'ya want some, too, gal?"

"Oh, very well," Motoko reluctantly agreed, fixing the older girl with a stern look. "But just this one bottle, Kitsune. I don't want either of us to pass out again, not when I've got to get up soon to study, and you've got to get ready for your dinner shift at the Tea Rooms. You're the rostered manager tonight, so you've got to be there early!"

"Ah know, Ah know," Kit stated dismissively, then raised her cup up to her lips and drained it in one go. "Ahhh! That hit the spot! Drink up, Sugah."

"I am," Motoko growled, then sipped at her own drink in a far more decorous manner. "When I drink, I prefer to savor the taste of sake, not gulp it down like tap water."

"To each their own, Sweetie. Ah reckon 'shots' are the way to go."

"I'll give you a shot, all right, if I have to play second fiddle to your drinking for the rest of the day," Motoko grumbled, placing her cup back down on the floor and then slumping down backwards on the rumpled futon. "I've already got a headache from imbibing too much of it before we fell asleep, and wasted most of this sunny afternoon."

"Oh, what was that? Are ya feelin' a little neglected, gal?" Kit coyly inquired, giving the sulking Motoko a wink. "Don't worry, Ah got plenty of time to drink and to give you a little sugar, Sugah!" Sliding her empty choko out of the way, Kitsune then leaned down over the prone kendo girl, taking note of Motoko's sharp intake of breath and watching her eyes widen and face turn pink as she realized just what was going to happen next.

Kitsune's so bold! I wish that I could be more like her in that regard…OH?

The fingers of Kitsune's left hand closed over Motoko's right breast and gently began to squeeze the tempting, nippled mound, just as her right hand slid down and under the younger girl's neck. And then the grinning Kit Fox lifted her lover's head upwards, their lips meeting passionately in a mid-air kiss.

"Ah, Kitsune - mmmmmmm!"

Motoko closed her eyes, quickly reached up and wrapped her arms around Kitsune's bare shoulders, and then drew the nude, big-breasted older girl down on top of her own slender, naked body.

By now, the nervous suzumebachi had worked out exactly where in this room the fascinating odor he had sensed earlier on was coming from. Well, the current source of it, anyway. And once again, his curiosity and eagerness to taste-test a sample of the sweet smelling mystery substance overrode his natural caution about being in such close proximity to humans.

Seeing that the two girls were now fully occupied with what they were doing to each other, Kyle took the opportunity to scuttle unnoticed across the intervening stretch of floor, and then climb up the slippery side of the now half-empty bottle that Kitsune had placed next to her side of the futon. Reaching the rim of the circular hole at the top of the glass container, he leaned forward and gingerly inhaled the strong smell drifting up from the transparent liquid within.

Whew! Just what is this stuff in here? It's smells strong, but good. Whoo! This odor is making me feel a little dizzy…

'Sniff – sniff!' Ahhh! Yesh, it's p-pretty shtrong, all righty. Yup!

Le-lemme just shee if I can – umph! If I can squeeze inside and have a little sip of this stuff – Whoopsie!

'PLOP!'

"Whoah! 'Glub!' Dammit, I fell in!" Kyle spluttered, fighting to pull himself back up out of the strange liquid he had just tumbled into. "This wet glass is slipperier than I thought it would be –'gasp!' 'Blub!'

Just as Kyle's gasping head splashed back up through the surface of the sake for the second time, from her position on top of Motoko, Kitsune reached across and picked up the bottle again, intending to pour herself yet another cupful of the now hornet-flavored liquor.

"Hold on a second, Sugah," she cheerily informed her very impatient looking companion. "Ah'll just finish this last bit off, and then we can get right into it – heey? What the heck?"

"Waaaaahh! There's a huge bee in mah sake," the outraged Kitsune then yelled out, shaking the half-full bottle furiously, with the hapless Kyle still trapped inside it. "Get outta mah drink, ya striped liquor nicker! Shoo! Scram!"

"Bzzz! - 'blub'-'blub', 'gasp!'-'blub!'" Kyle wailed, feeling himself being tossed around like a bobbing cork in the splashing rice wine. "'Hic!' I can't get out, you stupid, psycho, drunkard – 'blub'!"

Kitsune then angrily swung the bottle by its base in a vicious arc, sending Kyle and a goodly measure of her drink spraying across Motoko's room in a bubbling cloud of sweet sake. The centrifugal force and the wave of escaping liquor generated by the swinging bottle tossed the hapless Kyle back out through its open neck again and across the room almost to the hall doorway. Somehow recovering his equilibrium in mid air, the half-drowned hornet first pinballed himself between all three sides of the doorframe in a futile effort to get away, before finally wobbling off back out through the gap into the hallway like a buzzing yellow and black marble of jelly. The vast amount of strong sake he had accidentally swallowed whilst trapped in the bottle was rapidly having an adverse effect of both his flying, and his already woozy mind.

"And stay out, ya buzzing bandit!" came loudly from behind him, followed by the sound of the door slamming completely shut.

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! You should've seen your face, Kitsune?"

"Shuddup, Kendo kook! That's not funny, dammit-all! Mah poor sake! It's all spilled now!"

"Yes, it was! And that was your fault! Ha, ha, ha, ha! Oh, Kami-sama, that was absolutely hilarious."

"Was not!"

Bzzz- 'hic!' Bzzz–'hoc!' "Yes, thish stuff shure iss tashtee–'hic!' Bzzzz!" the inebriated Kyle droned happily to no one in particular as he spluttered through a series of jerky stop–starts through the air in his erratic and no longer really necessary escape attempt. "Up, up and awa-a-ay-! 'Hic!'"

BONK!

"OW!"–'Hic!'

After bouncing his befuddled head off the hallway ceiling, Kyle spiraled uncontrollably downwards and in through the open doorway of the next room along from the one he had just escaped from. As he corkscrewed into the huge open space beyond the entrance to Room 301, the intoxicated Kyle had just the presence of mind to notice with surprise that he now seemed to be safely outside this nightmarish building, although the tropical jungle that was spread out before him was like nothing he had ever before seen in Japan.

"What the F-'hic?' Where the heck am I now?" 'Yawwwn!' "Oh, yeah, I gotta – 'hic!' – gotta get back to the hive…!"

Trying to beat his unresponsive wings even faster in a valiant effort to reach the safety of the top branches of a tree he dimly registered ahead of him, the sozzled suzumebachi finally managed to gain some extra altitude through the hot and surprisingly steamy atmosphere surrounding him. Just as the woozy hornet felt he was finally getting somewhere, his wings suddenly gave up the ghost and cut out on him. The semi-conscious Kyle immediately fell out of the humid air, to belly flop down onto a palm frond, some fifteen feet above what appeared to be a hot pool. A subconscious reflex action upon impact caused him to grip tightly to the foliage with all six legs, and then he promptly dropped off into a liquor-induced sleep.

The swirly-eyed Kyle's last coherent thought before passing out, was:

How in the heck did those two human females in the last room get together in that way, anyway? And…why…?

'Hic!'

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Author's Note:

And if you do want to find out just how Kitsune and Motoko got together, then you're in 'M' rated luck. Be sure to read the special spin-off chapter of this story, titled, 'Love Hina: Flight of the Hornet - The Seduction'.

I've posted it as a brand new story, and it's up right now.