Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! Just mostly war stuff going on.
The battle had been raging on for a full month. Not only were keronians dying but news had started to circulate about the virus on Pekopon, and the numbers of deaths had risen.
People were finally starting to fall from the virus. It was a massive plague.
Keroro sat in front of the pekoponians who were still hiding out at Dobaba's mansion. They hadn't been unaffected by the war. Some of Dobaba's industries had been attacked.
Keroro passed around some newspapers about the status of Pekopon.
"Do...Do you think Mom has already gotten sick?" Fuyuki asked Natsumi.
"Don't think about it. It's better not to think about it." She shook her head.
"Angol still won't change their mind about not destroying Pekopon." Keroro told them, "And I know we want to keep you safe, but it's about time to decide if...If we should include you in the fighting. After all this is your planet too now."
He wanted to trust their pekoponian friends. Maybe just maybe they'd be able to beat Mois when they themselves couldn't.
"But we're humans!" Fuyuki reminded Keroro, "We're not supposed to be here. Won't the keronians have problems with us."
"Garuru already suspects that we saved Natsumi." Giroro admitted, "He told me the other day, in his own words of course! That he knew I wouldn't let my pekoponian girl-I mean friend perish." Giroro started blushing, "He's fine with it. I think most of keron doesn't care. They have better things to think about."
Fuyuki nodded. He glanced at Keroro, "I'm sorry, sarge. But I can't help you. I'm not a fighter."
"I know. I want you to stay safe, Fuyuki." Keroro agreed.
"I've been helping Dobaba out with his business here. Learning how to produce and sell keronian weapons. I've been doing what I can." Momoka nodded, "But I think I'm doing better here than in the front lines."
Tamama nodded to her.
Giroro glanced at Natsumi. For the last month he had been trying to convince her to fight with him under a disguise. It had been a personal fantasy of his to fight in battle with Natsumi instead of against her.
And this war with the Angolians was finally the opportunity he wanted to fight by her side.
"No. We're losing this war and it doesn't make any sense to fight a losing battle." Natsumi frowned. However she had refused every offer to fight. She was too rational, she thought things through now.
She was an adult, older, more mature. But Giroro missed the light of her warrior spirit when she would just punch things that she thought was wrong.
"Where's your warrior spirit, Natsumi?" Giroro asked.
"Gone. I'm not a warrior." Natsumi said hurriedly.
Giroro frowned sadly.
"Well I'll help." Saburo volunteered. "I don't want to be in the front lines though." He glanced at Kululu, "Any chance I could help you with mission control?"
"You want to form a tech team with me? Ku?" Kululu asked. He liked the idea of having Saburo's help but something felt wrong about forming a tech team that didn't have Mois.
He liked Saburo but would he be able to be as good as Mois's high standard. "Fine." He tried to be more willing to accept help, accept friendship.
He didn't want to repeat the mistakes he had made with Mois.
"I'm supposed to be dead. I don't want the Keroro Platoon to be hated because people realize that you helped me fake my death." Dororo explained. He couldn't help even if he wanted to.
"And...I promised Dororo I'd stay out of danger." Koyuki frowned.
So they only had Saburo helping.
Natsumi was trying to be rational by not going into battle. She wanted to be logical. To be mature. To be smart.
But sometimes some things are more important than reason.
Natsumi waved to the frogs and Saburo as they left for the war yet again and she walked along the gardens in Dobaba's manor. Some of his employees were walking around. They were all very nice and friendly to her.
Although she used to hate aliens, she liked the alien populace of Keron. She was not as irrational as she had been when she was a teen. She didn't hate people for no reason.
"It's my daughter. Isn't she cute?" A mother keronian said while carrying around her baby. Natsumi liked seeing the small keronian child.
"She is." Natsumi agreed.
If Mois doesn't destroy Earth. Natsumi realized. These people will die. So many people will die and Earth will destroy everything. She hated to think about it. She loved her home planet.
But she didn't want innocents to die because of Mois's bad decisions. And Natsumi knew that even if she tried to be reasonable, it hurt to sit down and watch people die. To do nothing.
She didn't like feeling powerless. But she had accepted feeling powerless after the keronians had left.
Things are no longer like that. Keroro and Giroro are back. And they will die if you don't do anything. Natsumi reminded. She had to fight. It wasn't like her to sit back and twiddle her thumbs.
Giroro was right. She was a warrior. It was in her blood. So she left and grabbed some guns from Dobaba's mansion.
Quickly she ran to where the keronians had left to. She followed the subways, the trains. People gave her passing glances but since a lot of them were evacuating they didn't talk to her much.
Eventually she found Giroro on the battlefield. An angolian was attacking him.
You're a warrior, Natsumi. Natsumi recalled. And she pulled the trigger. The angolian fell down.
"Natsumi?" Giroro asked shocked seeing Natsumi on the battlefield.
"You guys are losing, aren't you? Let me fix this battle for you." She offered.
"What are you doing here? I thought you wanted to be rational!" Giroro pointed out.
"I'm done being reasonable. It's time to save some people." She hissed, she shot at someone again that was attacking.
Giroro swooned as he saw her fight. She was sending those Angolians back! She was turning the tide of this battle.
"Did you miss me?" Natsumi teased.
"God yes." Giroro nodded, "Now let's fight together. Just like old times."
Natsumi smiled. She would have liked that. She had tried for so long to get rid of her old self, to abandon it. But she liked the old Natsumi.
She wanted things to be the same. So she was happy to join Giroro in battle.
Her warrior spirit was back.
Saburo wasn't having as much luck as Natsumi. He wasn't turning the tide of a battlefield.
Kululu sat in a chair with his computers surrounding him, far from the battlefield. Saburo was behind him.
"Don't touch that." Kululu scolded.
"Well what am I supposed to do?" Saburo asked, "I was just turning the computer on!"
"Just...Try to match my movements." Kululu described "We're going to have to work together as a team to monitor the battlefield. Make sure they don't have reinforcements. We'll also have to counter hack Mois, and try to predict what her next battle strategy will be." His headphones unplugged to hook up to his computer.
"Counter...Hack?" Saburo asked.
"Oh yeah. She's been trying to get into the keronian system for a few weeks. Blow up our power supply, corrupt the files, stop the networking between computers, stuff like that. Ku, ku, ku." Kululu shrugged.
Saburo paled. "And she hasn't been successful yet?"
"Luckily no. I've been trying to rewire her to other planets and she's been messing up their systems. Ku, ku, ku. Got to be a jerk even in war times." Kululu grinned. He started typing.
Saburo tried to watch what he was doing and figure out what sort of programming he was supposed to be doing. He tried to imitate it as Kululu handed him something.
Saburo didn't catch it and it fell to the floor.
Kululu glared at him for a moment.
"You could have given me some warning that you were tossing me something." Saburo frowned. "Say something like here, or something like that."
"Mois doesn't need a warning." Kululu whispered quietly. She was always in sync with him. She had been the perfect partner on the tech team.
And nothing else, even Saburo compared.
"Well I'm not Mois. And I need training." Saburo tried to plead. But Kululu didn't want a new partner. He didn't really want to train him.
"Fine." He tried to give him a few instructions, but would constantly get annoyed with him when he didn't do things as fast or in the same manner as Mois.
"I sent that virus off!" Saburo frowned.
"But you didn't clap after wards." Kululu crossed his arms. Mois had always clapped and smiled.
Saburo grumbled in annoyance. He felt he was doing pretty well for a first timer! He didn't know what Kululu's problem was.
Usually they were in sync. But Kululu was getting constantly annoyed with him over little things.
Eventually as the hours went by, Saburo glanced over to Kululu's computer and chair behind him to see what Kululu was doing. Kululu had been banging his head against the table had Saburo's screw ups last time he checked.
But this time Kululu was typing with one hand, and scrolling with his mouse with his other on a different monitor. Instead of having his full attention on the war he was instead using satellites to take pictures of Mois on the battlefield and then arrange them perfectly in a folder with his other Mois pictures.
Every now and then he would scroll through them and smile as he just sort of gazed at a bunch of Mois pictures.
"Ah...I get it." Saburo smiled, seeing what was going on. "You miss Mois."
"What?" Kululu quickly exited his photo capturing monitor, blocking it out and clicking exit as fast as he could.
"You're not really mad at me. I'm doing a good job, but since Mois was your old partner you feel as if she should be here." Saburo smiled. So the fault wasn't with him.
"She...She was just really good at tech team stuff. We were a good team." Kululu tried to explain.
"I can understand why you're distracted and annoyed. It must be tough fighting your ex-" Saburo tried to comfort him.
"She's not my ex! We were never together. Why do so many people from pekopon think that we were a thing?" Kululu asked annoyed.
Saburo frowned. So they weren't a thing? Guess it was one-sided then. I always kind of thought like they were dating. I mean Kululu made it sound like they kind of were. "Oh...My bad." Saburo apologized, "But...It's okay to have a soft spot for her her. Even if she is the enemy."
Kululu frowned. "I don't have a soft spot for her!"
"Then what were all those pictures about?" Saburo asked. He had seen them. The worst excuse Kululu could give was that they didn't exist. That would be a very bad lie.
Kululu sweat for a moment, until he found an excuse that he decided to go with. "I never said I didn't think she wasn't hot. You really think I wouldn't be the type of guy that was attracted to someone destroying their enemies in such a bloody fashion? Ku, ku, ku."
"I kind of hoped you weren't." Saburo admitted. He could tell Kululu was joking. He wasn't really super attracted to Mois killing other keronians.
"Ku. She's super hot." Kululu sounded like he was swooning. He turned on the satellite again. "Oh look at that! She blew up a building. She's so cute~."
Saburo felt with a terrible dread that maybe Kululu wasn't joking. After all it really did sound like Kululu was swooning.
Crap. He does think her killing people is hot! Saburo had a weird friend. He would like to hope that things went well between Kululu and Angol Mois, but that was just weird...
He hoped that someday they could talk between each other and start a normal relationship, instead of one that revolved around murder.
Natsumi had managed to help out the front lines a lot. She had turned the tide of the battle completely. The keronians were actually winning for once.
And because of that Mois had been forced to actually get out into the front lines to face her. Twirling her spear she stood in front of her former friend.
"Mois." Natsumi's voice was cold. She had killed for the first time today, and she wouldn't hold back against anyone who hurt innocents. Even a former friend.
"Natsumi." Mois didn't want to attack Natsumi. All right. You're the tough angolian general. You're leading this war. But Natsumi...Natsumi's just a pekoponian. So try not to hurt her. She needed to appear tough, evil, like a dictator to make the keronians realize that she wasn't something they could exploit.
She would be the ruler of Angol someday. And she needed to appear the part. If she played her role right she'd someday become it. That was something she was sure of. But besides being mad at the keronians she wasn't really evil. And she didn't want to hurt Natsumi at all.
I'm fighting for what I believe in. Trying to do what I think is best. Mois remembered. The universe would be better if they had a fresh start. Too many people, too many planets were filled with sin.
And sin just hurt others. It was time to stand back and do nothing and let nature take its course. But Mois didn't want to hurt Natsumi personally. She'd let Natsumi live until the end of the universe which might be several years away.
Natsumi could have several good years.
Natsumi charged at Mois and Mois tried to dodge. She tried to pretend like she was attacking back, swinging her spear onto the ground and causing the ground to shatter into craters. But she always made sure that Natsumi wouldn't be hurt by the attacks.
"We used to be friends, Natsumi. Stand down." Mois tried to plead with Natsumi. She still cared for her.
"Used to doesn't matter to me. The present and the future is what I'm fighting for. I don't live in the past." Natsumi pulled out something she had concealed under her leggings. A knife. Giroro's dagger that he must have lent to her to protect herself.
Giroro smiled and cheered Natsumi on in the background as Natsumi charged, before Mois could stop her, Natsumi made a clean slice at Mois's side of her stomach.
The knife sliced through the fabric of her shirt and blood coated her shirt. "AHH!" Mois screamed out in pain. It was the first time anyone at all had managed to land a hit on her.
And it was because she was holding back.
She...She's fighting with the intent to kill. Mois realized as she stepped back and cradled her side. She was trying not to cry from the pain, but she wasn't strong and tough. She hadn't done this before, battling, so she was whimpering a bit.
"Mois!" Fear, Mois's closet ally caught Mois as Mois started teetering. Mois smiled at her cousin. At least she had one friend who was looking out for her.
"I'll kill you, pekoponian scum! How dare you hurt my cousin!" Fear snarled.
Mois stopped her. She shook her head.
I cared about Natsumi. I still thought of her as a friend after all this time. But I don't think Natsumi thinks the same of me. Mois realized. She's protecting her other friends from me. I mean nothing to her. Mois felt sad at the realization.
Seven years ago the keronians had left the pekoponians. But the pekoponians and the keronians both left her. None of them cared about her.
They all left and now none of them cared a smidgen about her. None of them were trying to tell her it would be okay, that they didn't want to harm her, that this war didn't mean anything compared to their friendship.
It's because none of them consider themselves my friends. Mois realized. She was all alone. She had thought that she was sparing her old friends because of old time's sake, but perhaps she had read into their relationship wrong. She had seen something that had never been, just like her childhood with Keroro.
She had desperately wanted a friendship. But it had never existed.
"She can win this battle." Mois spoke up, trying to act like a leader as Fear helped her up. "It doesn't mean anything to us. It just means that this city isn't destroyed. A city is smaller than a universe." And that was what this war was about. The universe. "Let's go, Fear."
Fear nodded. She needed to help bandage Mois's wound.
"And don't come back!" Natsumi hissed.
"If you try to hurt Natsumi, I'll kill you!" Giroro threatened. Mois didn't look behind her as Fear and her left.
Mois hissed in pain as Fear tried to disinfect her wound.
"It's deep. She cut you pretty deep. If it gets infected you could be gravely injured." Fear reminded her.
"I'm fine." Mois tried to reassure her cousin. She needed to be strong, but she was feeling dizzy. Fear sat her down.
"You've never fought before. I love fighting and have done it countless times. You might be great at mass destruction and giving orders, strategy and hacking into their databases to figure out their plans, but in a personal fight you're terrible." Fear told her. "You need to take more care of yourself. I saw you holding back against her."
"She was my friend!" Mois tried to defend.
"Even if our blood is crystal we can still bleed!" Fear's voice was filled with concern and worry for her cousin, "And she doesn't look much like a friend. She's only hurting you. As I told you before cut off that weakness that you feel for your old friends. They're only dragging you down."
Mois frowned. Fear was just like Asami. Tough. She was blunt. When she felt something she said it out loud.
"You've done it before." Fear tried to talk more soothingly, "You cut off that emotional attachment you had to the green one- Keroro, who was only dragging you down. You were able to achieve so much because you cared so little for him. To be able to stand up for yourself." Fear reminded.
Mois smiled. It had taken her a while, but Fear was right. She had cut off the toxic poison that was Keroro from her life. And that had made it so much easier to negotiate.
"A princess like you- A title that you yourself made, might I remind you." Fear told her, "The lord of terror doesn't deserve to be used. And you've felt so much better ever since ridding yourself of him, aren't I right? So do it with those others that are hurting you!" Fear encouraged. She had to try to advise her cousin to make smart decisions or else Mois's kindness would be her undoing.
"But I don't want to cut off my friends." Mois frowned, "I...I miss Momoka, Fuyuki, Koyuki, Natsumi and Saburo. They were my pekoponian friends. They were different than other pekoponians. They were nice. And I don't really want to hurt them in battle."
Fear sat down next to Mois. She pat her cousin's head. "You know about that virus from Pekopon, right? Of course you know." Fear sighed, "You know it's highly contagious right? And that those pekoponians are the most susceptible because they carry the sin of being pekoponian..."
Moid nodded.
"They might already have it. The virus might just be hiding in their system infecting others because they're from the planet." Fear reminded, "So those pekoponians are doomed to die. Your friends are doomed to die."
Mois nodded, "I know that...And I never really cared about their death. After all everything is doomed to die eventually. I'm used to it. What I'm not used to is battle and war. Them dying from my hand in it—Well it's something I would ideally like to prevent." She didn't want that to happen.
"I suppose the thing I'm most not used to is my friends hating me." Mois admitted. "I don't like that they hate me because of this war." She didn't like being hated. "I...I feel more alone than ever."
"There is power in being alone." Fear tried to advise, "Being alone grants you power and power makes you alone." Fear nodded, "That's why even most of the angolians are afraid of you. Because of your power. You destroy more than any other angolian, you are truly the lord of terror. And the lord of terror stands alone. So be proud of it." Fear wasn't the best at understanding why friends were important.
Friendship wasn't important to their culture.
Mois nodded and sighed. But Fear was still worried about her cousin. She may not have cared much for friendship, but she cared for Mois. She was like a sister to her and she wanted to protect her.
"Do you think you can truly kill the keronians who are opposing us? All of them?" Fear asked.
"I can." Mois answered confidently.
"What about that one you were close to...Another former friend that you may very well face in battle...Wasn't his name Kululu? Can you kill him?" Fear asked.
Mois was quiet.
"You waited for days and days for him to call you." Fear recalled. "I remember you waiting with your phone so excitedly. You eventually tried to email him or call him yourself but his number and address didn't exist. You told me that he probably changed phones and continued waiting."
Mois frowned. "I don't like this story...I know I like stories, but not this one." She shook her head.
"You were so patient. So dutiful. Didn't you even consider him your best friend?" Fear continued.
Mois frowned and nodded. "He...I did consider him my best friend."
"I remember when you realized two pekoponian years ago that the call you were waiting for was never coming that you cried and cried. You realized that he had ditched you and that you were nothing to him. He hurt you badly. But you're the type to still care. It takes you hundreds and hundreds of years to get over things like this. So can you really kill him?" Fear asked.
Mois frowned. "I have to." She said in a quiet voice, "Don't worry. Someday I will rule Angol and I can't play favorites. I have to be unbiased. You're right." She couldn't afford to hold back on old friends like Natsumi. That was the point of this speech. "But I won't target him specifically because he hurt me." Mois reassured.
"You can-" Fear tried to tell her. But Mois wouldn't hear him.
"I also won't give him lenience because of my feelings for him. If we cross in the battlefield he'll get the same treatment that anyone else would." She tried to promise.
"Feelings...?" Fear asked. As in current? Ah...She still cares about him. Fear realized. "You're still waiting for him to show you that he cares." Fear sadly deduced. "Aren't you?"
Mois couldn't lie. She gave a small tiny nod.
Fear sighed and put her arms around Mois. "Mois...It's not going to happen." Fear sadly told her, "You have to stop hoping, to stop feeling. Because its not going to happen after so long. He doesn't care about you. And you're worth so much more than someone who forgot to contact you or couldn't be bothered to."
Mois frowned. But she wanted her happy ending too. She wanted to be just as happy as Keroro and Tamama were now. Why couldn't she and Kululu be in a nice, happy, relationship?
Mois couldn't help herself. She put her hands on her face and let out a sob and started crying. "But I can't stop crying!" She admitted sadly, "Even if I pretend to it's not working! Even if I destroy everything in my path I still care about him and keep thinking about him!"
Fear pat her back.
"I want him to pay attention to me. To apologize to me for not talking to me!" Mois admitted sadly what she wanted oh so desperately, "I want him to tell me our two kisses weren't just some mistake, that he cares about me.."
"Wait...You two kissed? What kisses?" This was news to Fear. Panic and anger at Kululu was now rising inside of her. This was part of the story that she hadn't heard before.
If Mois didn't kill him, Fear could name one person who might. And it was her.
"I just want him to say that we're still friends. That he missed me." Mois sobbed, "But that's not true no matter how much I wish it." She wiped away her tears, "I always care too much. Want things too much. And it always ends up hurting me."
Fear nodded and held her crying leader. "You don't have to face him on the battlefield if you don't want to." She whispered. "I won't make you kill him or even talk to him."
After all if she came across him, Fear would deal with him. I didn't know they were ex's. She thought to herself.
"Thanks Fear." Mois sniffled, "I'm glad I have you." Fear wasn't around that much in her life before Pekopon, both of them were busy and had things to do so they saw each other rarely, but she did love Fear.
"You'll always have me." Fear reassured. "And the angols and you and me...We'll win." Fear reassured.
Mois smiled. She would like that.
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