Dororo woke slowly, the throbbing in his head and body forcing him to lay in agony unable to think. Slowly, painfully he sat up and inspected his situation. His skin had turned dark blue from where the hands had grabbed him and he had a painful lump on his head but nothing seemed to be broken. The thing that worried him was his lack of a sword, it seemed that whoever took him here did not want him armed.
Slowly he stood and walked the perimeter of the room. Strangely aside from a small hole he assumed to be the toilet he could not find any sort of furnishings, not even any lamps. The only reason he could see were the small lights that flashed or glowed off on one side of the room. Perplexed he proceeded to walk towards the lights only to meet steel bars.
Ah, now I understand. It's not a room, it's a cell. He mused silently as the lights began to flicker with increased speed and intensity. Familiar cruel laughter echoed around him as a screen slowly descended into view.
"Ku~ ku ku ku…"
Kururu's grinning face filled Dororo's vision as the light from the screen destroyed his night vision.
"Kururu, why are you locking me up like this? I haven't done anything to you."
Kururu leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands thoughtfully. "Dororo, when will you learn? You are a threat, and threats must be eliminated. That's why assassins like you exist. I am merely ridding myself of a potential problem, nothing less, nothing more."
Dororo felt cold sweat run down his neck, Kururu wasn't like this. He wasn't laughing nearly as much as he should've been and he seemed colder somehow…The only time he'd ever seen Kururu like this was back on Keron when…
"Kururu, what has happened? You haven't been like this since-"
Kururu cut him off by slamming his fist down in an unusual show of rage. "Shut up! Don't dredge up such useless things!" He seemed to regain his composure and quietly added. "…It doesn't concern you anyway…"
Kururu pressed a button and the screen blanked out, though his voice still reverberated.
"Nothing personal, by the way, but I need some leeway with Keroro and you happen to be childhood friends…"
Dororo knew what was coming even before the screen flicked back on. He tried to cover his eyes but it was already too late. The screen flooded with unpleasant images from his past as a faraway voice proclaimed: "Trauma Switch On"
--
Swearing softly, Kururu cleaned his glasses. To think he'd lost his cool over something as trivial as…
But it wasn't that trivial. It was his past, and he was a fool to forget it. Still, those were not memories he'd like to relive anytime soon…
He felt a twinge of guilt as he realized the irony of the situation, after all it was Dororo and his Trauma Switch that inspired others to remember their past troubles…He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Guilt? Sympathy? These were not good feelings in an invader and less so for an intelligence officer. And yet he'd been having these internal struggles more and more frequently as time went on…
He leaned back, pensive. It's this damn planet… He thought bitterly It makes you soft and sentimental. It makes you a part of it, whether you realize it or not. Well, I won't go soft anytime soon…
--
Keroro screamed and clawed at the sheet of metal that stood between him and escape. Everywhere he looked there were those damn plasma screens showing live feeds of his platoon suffering. It was driving him mad.
His only solace was that Kururu hadn't found Tamama or Doro…
"Oh shit." He muttered under his breath as the figure of Dororo's hunched figure flooded the screens. The aura of depression around him was nearly visible as the ninja relived his troubled past.
Keroro felt the cold stone of guilt in his heart as he watched his childhood friend suffer for his misdeeds. He screamed, clawed at his ears, and dropped to the floor, defeated by exhaustion and hunger.
As the world around him faded he heard Dororo's voice echoing hollowly.
"…Keroro-kun, how could you do such horrible things?"
To this, Keroro did not have an answer.
--
Yes I know it's a terribly short chapter and it's late too, but I've been busy. My handicapped mother is back from the hospital and I have to care for her so my production rate is WAY down. Not only that but I've been staving off writers block at every turn. Anyway, you didn't come to hear me bitch so here's the disclaimer:
I do not, nor will I ever own Keroro Gunso, that is way to 1337 even for me. I claim no rights to this crap or the money it will not produce. So suck on that ya lawyers!
*Ahem* So now the bit where I go all announcer on you and drop hints about the content of the next chapter in a voice like one of those Saturday morning cartoon narrators.
What will happen to Keroro as he is passed out in the clutches of Kururu? What is the yellow frog's mysterious past? WHERE THE HECK IS TAMAMA? Does anyone care about what happened to the Pekopan?
Find out all this and maybe more in the next chapter of Payment!
P.S. I'll be trying to pump these out more frequently as I work on other things, like school and my other various fanfiction. So don't give up on that next chapter; it's in the wings somewhere.