Hi, and welcome to the second-to-last chapter (or maybe it isn't?) So what happened to the missing residents? Read on and find out!

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LOVE HINA: DOOMSDAY
CHAPTER EIGHT

By Doctor-T

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The Location: Almost half way down the opposing slope of the hill situated directly behind the Hinata Apartments.

The Date: 2002, Doomsday, one millisecond after the nuclear detonation.

As the ridgeline above them suddenly turned into an ominous black silhouette by the pure white light expanding out from the atomic detonation on the other side of the hill, Motoko's half-completed question caught in her throat as she and her young namesake froze in terror. Then, as the trees on the hilltop erupted into roaring flame from the arriving heat pulse, they turned and fled wildly down the green and verdant slope, heading for the hoped-for watery protection of the river snaking along far below them.

But that wasn't to be the worst of it for the terrified pair. Far from it, in fact. For, a few seconds later, the physical shockwave from the nearly fifty kiloton explosion reached the inferno on the ridge, blasting thousands of tonnes of pulverized trees and bushes high into the air above the valley. This crackling, smoking, flame-wreathed debris shower then began tumbling lazily down towards the fleeing refugees, some of the broken logs and larger branches crashing haphazardly down amongst the intact forest trees surrounding the running girls, in shattering explosions of smoke, flame, shredded clouds of leaves and whipping greenery.

And if this fiery rain of wooden death wasn't enough for them to contend with, another lethal hazard rapidly made itself known. Intermixed with the plummeting fireballs of smashed foliage was a luckily far sparser avalanche of hurtling, spinning boulders of all shapes and sizes. These rocky missiles had been dislodged from their beds in the steep slope by the violent earth tremors caused by the shockwave striking the summit of the hill.

Buffeted by the gale-force winds sweeping outwards from the epicentre of the detonation, the pair tumbled down the shaking slope, somehow managing to avoid being struck by any dangerously large fragments of wood or stone, and stay together at the same time. But it was touch and go for the pair, until purely by chance, the older Motoko spotted what could be their only chance at salvation.

As her eyes fell upon the narrow crevice leading into the hillside under a large rocky overhang, the kendo girl immediately saw its possibilities as a safe refuge from the falling rubble, the rapidly growing forest fires and the danger of being swept away by the howling gusts of smoke and debris-laden wind. Skidding to a halt, she shrieked out an order to her much younger companion, whilst pointing frantically at the protected opening that she had so fortuitously discovered.

"Motoko-chan! In here, quick!!"

The pair flung themselves under the overhang, then rapidly wormed their way further into the narrow depression in the solid rock, just as a broken and burning tree trunk – one that must have weighed at least a tonne - somersaulted with a series of loud crashes over the opening, to roll on down the slope towards the small river at its base. The panting, white-faced girls had gotten out of its destructive path just in the nick of time!

A second later, the white-hot atomic fireball bubbled up above the hellish looking ridgeline, the radiated heat searing both slopes of the now totally exposed valley far below, almost instantly causing all of the remaining unburnt vegetation to erupt into an even worse conflagration of smoke and fire. Then, outside the narrow mouth of their refuge, the strong wind reversed direction and began to blow back upwards towards the ridge, the smoke and dust-laden breeze rapidly speeding up into another roaring gale as the superheated mushroom cloud sucked in air from kilometers around to fuel its all-consuming firestorm.

As the nuclear storm raged outside, the air inside the shuddering fissure grew hot and smoky, but luckily for the two girls now cowering at the far end of the six meter long natural tunnel, not unbearably so. Even luckier for them, almost the entire width of the nearly three hundred meter high foothill lay between ground zero of the just detonated nuclear reactor and their auspicious refuge. Not even a blast ten times the magnitude of the one that had just occurred could have penetrated this geological barrier of millions of tonnes of solid rock.

Clutching her hands tightly over her ears to try to block out the awesome thunderclap of the explosion as it just now swept over the burning valley at the comparatively tardy speed of sound, Motoko collapsed onto the bare rock floor of their refuge, fighting to regain control of her shattered nerves and her panicky breathing, as did the younger girl. Once the deafening, earth-shaking boom had finally faded back into the howling whistle of the windstorm that was fanning the all-consuming forest fire outside the narrow cave, Motoko used her training to calm her mind, until she could think reasonably coherently once again. Then the kendo girl raised up her still white-as-a-ghost face, and asked her tiny body-double what in the hell had just happened.

The shaken-looking young girl who shared her name then told her the full how-and-why of the horrific tragedy that had just minutes before befallen the township of Hinata Hot Springs, to Motoko's rapidly growing horror as the unbelievable story progressed to its just-experienced, destructive conclusion.

Once the youngster had finished her sorry tale, Motoko buried her own tear-streaked face in her trembling hands for a few seconds, her slender body shuddering with half suppressed sobs as she tried to come to terms with the horrifying reality that her old, beloved and comfortable life at the now destroyed Hinata Apartments had come to a permanent end.

"We-well, what should we do now for the best," the badly shaken kendo girl finally asked out loud, of herself as much as of her tiny companion, once she had managed to pull herself together again. "One thing, though, I do know for a fact. My friends back where the Hinata Apartments used to be are all…all dead. 'Sniff!' There is no possibility of any survivors after th-that, and it would be suicide for us to even attempt to return to whatever may remain of Hinata Hot Springs. This is a most…unusual and tragic situation, Motoko-chan, and I…I really don't know what would b-be the correct course of action for us to take at this time…"

My god! Urashima was right with what he told me before…! He claimed that this was going to happen, and while he may be the definition of pathetic most of the time, he was still brave enough to try to save me. I should have listened to him…! Oh, I hope that he managed to survive…that?!

"I have a plan, Oneesama, but first you must quickly inject yourself with this." Reaching into a hidden pocket in her kimono, the anxious looking youngster produced a long, silver-colored tube. After she had removed the cap at one end, the older teen saw with trepidation that it was a rather large and sharp-looking injection – one, apparently, with her name on it.

"What?! Wh-why should I? And what exactly does that inoculator contain?" Motoko stammered, staring uneasily in the dim, flickering light at the sharp object in her younger namesake's right hand.

"I'm not sure, but I heard the others talking about it on our trip here," the young girl confessed. "But I think that they called it an 'anti-radiation shot', or something like that. I have already given myself one before I left to save you. See?"

Rolling up the left sleeve of her kimono, Little Motoko displayed a white cloth tourniquet on the inside bend of her elbow. "It hurt a little, but I didn't cry," she then declared, her fretfulness momentarily replaced by pride at her brave accomplishment.

"I…see. Very well," the kendo girl slowly agreed, eyeing the red spot of blood in the center of the bandage on the young girl's arm as she hesitantly reached forward to take the life-saving injection.

This shot will no-doubt be painful, but that is far preferable to a slow death from radiation poisoning, Motoko consoled herself, shivering slightly as she rolled up her own sleeve. And if this young girl can do it without any aid, then so can I…

After Motoko had, with a wince, given herself the jab in her left arm, and then bandaged the aching spot, she began to ask her identically dressed young companion about her proposed plan. But then Motoko's voice trailed off into an uncomfortable silence as she abruptly realized something most unusual about the surprisingly calm behavior of the far younger girl.

Huh? This girl – she has tears in her eyes, too, I see, and that is only to be expected after what we are suffering through. But she seems far less distraught than I am. Why? How can she possibly have this much self-control, even at such a young age…?

Well… since Motoko-chan has just claimed to me that she already knew that this tragedy was about to occur, I suppose that she was already prepared for the shock of it actually happening. That would explain her surprising lack of emotion. But, even so…?

"Well, Oneesama, we could do one of two things," Little Motoko gravely told her still pale and ill-looking older namesake, cutting off the older teen's disturbing train of thought. "I came here from Pararakelse Island, in the Mid-Pacific Ocean, so we could try to make our way back there. But if we go to my home now, my father, Keitaro-san, will be much younger than he is now, and so will Su-san. And my brothers and sisters haven't even been born yet, and our lovely house will just be a bunch of damp old caves, so I don't really wanna do that, if we can help it."

"Huh?!" Motoko gasped. "Who-who did you just say that your father was?" Surely she couldn't have just said-?!

"Oh. My father is Keitaro Urashima-san." The tiny tot bowed to her, and then politely added, "I'm sorry, we haven't had time yet to be properly introduced. I am his second-youngest daughter, Motoko-chan. I am pleased to make your acquaintance at long last, Motoko-Oneesama."

"Keitaro Urashima's daughter?!" Motoko yelled in disbelief, staring bug-eyed at the elementary-school-aged girl, still sure that she must have heard her wrong. "His second-youngest daughter?! B-but, how? When? And with who? S-Su - you said, Su, didn't you? But, that's impossible! She's only fifteen, and far too young to have had-!"

"Excuse me, Oneesama, but we came back from the future, remember?" Little Motoko reminded the babbling older teen. "I think that it was twenty-five years from now when we departed in our time machine to rescue you."

"Twen-twenty-five years?!" Motoko repeated, that familiar phrase jogging a faint memory in her chaotic mind. Before, on the laundry platform, that's exactly how much older Urashima claimed to me he now was, she then realized with a shudder. And he also told me that there was going to be an atomic explosion at the location of the Hinata Apartments…and after what has just transpired outside, that prediction of his has certainly came to pass…!

Could – could this girl's tale actually be the truth of what has happened here today, she wondered, a chill racing up her back at the possibility. Did the older Urashima really come back through time with the older Su and their daughter to save me and the other residents from that explosion? Normally I would laugh at such an implausible tale, but after what I have just witnessed, and with Su involved… She is a genius, and an inventor…so it could be true!

And if Su really is Little Motoko-chan's mother, that would certainly explain her tanned skin color…

"Anyway, I think that we should just wait here to be rescued by my family," the schoolgirl expounded to her shocked, teary-eyed, shivering companion. "See, Oneesama, that way we will be taken back to the future, and everything will be the way that it was before for me. Except that you'll be there, alive, with us, too, like we planned. Yay!"

Motoko jumped at Little Motoko-chan's sudden exclamation of joy, the startled kendo girl more than a little taken aback at discovering that her young impersonator was so happy at the prospect of them both living together with her family in the future, that even under such dire circumstances as these, the young girl could actually manage a smile and a cheer.

She-she actually means that! How incredible is this, that I, of all people, could be so loved and treasured by a young girl that I have never even met before today. And even though Motoko-chan is but an impressionable child, the very thought of such selfless concern for my well-being makes me feel…warm inside…

"All – all right, Motoko-chan," the kendo girl finally answered, drying her tears as she forced her numbed mind to format a plan of action. "You are correct, we had best stay here, safe in this cave, for a day or two, at least," she decided. "And the interval will give the forest fire outside our cave time to die down, and also any radioactive airborne particles time to disperse. That will increase our chances of survival."

Motoko took a deep, uneasy breath of the smoky air, wondering as she did so if any radioactive fallout would succeed in penetrating their subterranean refuge - or if it already had. But even if it did, she reasoned, then the anti-radiation shots that she and Little Motoko had injected themselves with should serve to give them a good measure of immunity against its toxic effects.

Reassured in her own mind that they were now as safe as they could possibly hope to be, the kendo girl then continued outlining her own hastily thought up plan to the attentive tot.

"However, if nobody has arrived to rescue us by then, we shall have to move to a safer location, if for no other reason than to find uncontaminated food and water. After that, I think that we should carefully make our way down to Kyoto, to stay at our shrine with my clan. We will be safe there. Later on, I'll try to find a way to return you back to your home on Pararakelse Island, okay?"

And if Urashima – Keitaro – really is there on Pararakelse Island, She then decided, her heart lifting with hope that her secret crush could have actually survived the horrifying blast that had just claimed their old home, and made it safely across the Pacific Ocean to that distant island paradise, Well then, whether he's fated to marry Su or not, I'll - I'll…confess to him h-how I truly feel about him, as I should have done weeks ago, and then beg Urashima's forgiveness for foolishly doubting his word. And then – maybe, just maybe – he can grow to love me, instead of Naru, or Su…?

After a moments thought, Little Motoko nodded her head. "Yes, Oneesama," she agreed. "But my folks will be back to rescue us before we have to leave here, I betcha. They've got a time machine, you see. So, no matter how long it takes them back in 2027 to find a way to locate us, they can come right back to today, and rescue us in no time at all!"

Motoko managed a faint smile of her own at the young girl's optimistic confidence in the ability of her elders.

"…Fine," she agreed. "But until then, we'd best follow my plan."

I hope that this child is correct with what she has just told me about the certainty of our impending rescue, Motoko uneasily thought, as she cuddled the much younger girl up close to her, both drawing comfort from the other's presence. But if anyone can locate us way out here, Su is the one, all right… Especially if the older her and Urashima really did travel back through time, as Motoko-chan claims. She must be in possession of some pretty advanced technology by now."

Gee, I hope that I'm right with what I've just told Oneesama, Little Motoko thought, feeling snug and safe in her idol's strong and comforting arms. But if I really can't get back to my home in the future again, well, now that I'm finally with Oneesama, being stuck here with her wouldn't be so bad. In fact, being held by her feels so right…it's…almost like my mother is holding me…

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Two seconds after the rocket-propelled flying turtle and her passed out passenger had powered their way through the fast-closing mouth of the wormhole; the space-time doorway vanished out of the rapidly expanding nuclear fireball, and 2002 as well, as if it had never even been there. As it did so, the speeding Tama-chan breathed out a huge sigh of relief at the nearness of their last-second escape. That had been too close!

And they weren't quite out of the woods yet, either! Quickly, the tiny hot springs turtle and her comatose friend spiralled down the zero-gravity tunnel in the wake of the shining silver time machine, managing to outrun, with the invaluable help of the miniature booster rocket built into her protective suit, the blast of heat that had made it through the entrance a split-second before it had slammed shut on their now destroyed former existence.

A moment later, the rocket finally cut out, having used up all of its limited supply of propellant. But the flying turtle wasn't worried on that score. The onsen tamago knew that, with no gravity or friction to slow her and Mutsumi down, their current momentum alone would be easily enough to get them back to 2027.

Even the fact that the interior of the space-time wormhole was mostly devoid of air held no terrors for the tiny flyer. Being a turtle, Tama-chan could hold her breath for up to one hour at a time – twelve times longer than she would need to traverse the time-space shortcut and come out safely on the other side.

Tama-chan was more concerned about Mutsumi's welfare in the airless environment that they were now hurtling through. The turtle girl couldn't hold her breath for a tenth as long as her tiny rescuer. But the worried turtle soon realized that since the young woman was now in a deep coma, the fact that she was should save her from any danger of asphyxiation. Tama-chan knew from her previous similar experiences with Mutsumi's fainting spells, that while the girl was in her catatonic state, which resembled nothing so much as a form of hibernation, all of the functions of Mutsumi's shapely body - her breathing, her heartbeat, and even her brain activity - slowed right down to a tiny fraction of their normal rate. Consequentially, Mutsumi now needed far less oxygen to stay alive, and so the five-minute trip forwards in time to 2027 through the airless vacuum of the space-time shortcut should prove to be no threat to her continued survival at all.

After assuring herself of this vital fact, Tama-chan then took a moment to give the drifting Mutsumi her anti-radiation injection. After doing so, she glided onto her friend's head and settled down comfortably for their short trip back to the future.

The tiny turtle knew that they would have to make it back to 2027 by their own efforts, this time. There was no way that she could overtake Su's time machine, so it would be pointless to try. Nor could she contact her friends aboard the disk-shaped dot blurring along ahead of her, because the short range transmitter built into her radiation suit had been shorted out by the electromagnetic pulse that had accompanied the abruptly cut off flash of energy through the wormhole entrance before it had closed. Bearing all of this in mind, Tama-chan wisely figured that it would be best to just sit back and enjoy the ride, conserve her own energy, and brace herself for their arrival through the 2027 end of the wormhole, which would take place in the atmosphere exactly one kilometer up above Pararakelse Island.

Still, Tama-chan hoped that she didn't fall too far behind her oblivious fellow rescuers. She, after all, had no idea whether Su would close the Pararakelse Island opening of the wormhole as soon as the time machine had made it through that end, or not. And Tama-chan sure didn't want her and Mutsumi to be trapped in the time flow with no way out, to suffocate, and then drift along in the black nothingness for possibly the rest of eternity, either!

Fortunately, a little forethought on her part would prevent any possibility of such a grim ending. Remembering the small locator beacon that Su had built into her rescue suit for just such a contingency, Tama-chan quickly activated it. The sensors on the speeding time machine far ahead of them would pick up its pulsating signal and enlighten their no-doubt overjoyed friends that the two latecomers had made it out of the fiery jaws of certain death, after all.

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On the hurtling time machine far ahead of the intrepid flying turtle and her swooned lady companion, neither Su nor Keitaro knew about any of this, of course. But both were praying with all of their might that the tiny turtle and Keitaro's oldest and dearest friend had made it safely into the wormhole before the reactor had exploded. It must have been touch-and-go, no matter what the outcome had been, and both rescuers were fretting badly over not knowing the fate of their dear friends.

"I feel terrible," Keitaro was at that very moment telling Su, his hands over his face as he slumped dejectedly forward in his seat. "I can't believe that after all we've gone through, we're only managing to bring Naru and Kuro back with us! And in doing so, there's a good chance that we've lost Tama-chan in the process! God-dammit!! Are you absolutely sure that you can't pick up any signal from her locator beacon, Su?"

"Not yet," the Molmol woman unhappily told her frustrated partner. Then, in an effort to cheer them both up, she added, "But you gotta remember, Keitaro, that doesn't mean they didn't make it. And here's why. When my nuclear reactor went 'kablooie', the electromagnetic pulse it caused managed to enter the wormhole a split-second before it had fully closed. I wasn't expecting us to have to stay on location for so long and cut it so fine with our escape, so the pulse succeeded in hitting my time machine before I could bring up our rear shields. Unfortunately, the pulse scrambled the rear facing scanners on our time machine, so I can't see what's behind us."

At the worried look on her companion's face, Su flashed him a cautiously optimistic grin. "Chill, Kei-Baby, it didn't do any permanent damage to my ship. It'll just take me a couple more minutes to bring the shorted-out sensors back online. And once that happens, we'll know for sure whether Tama-chan and Mutsumi managed to escape into the wormhole in time, or not."

"Okay, fine," Keitaro said, breathing out a sigh of relief at finding out their transport hadn't been seriously damaged, mixed with tense resignation at having to wait to find out the fate of their two tardy friends. "But the suspense of not knowing that is killing me. Geez! I'm trying hard to be positive about Tama-chan and Mutsumi's chances here, but I've also got to somehow try to prepare myself for the worst just in case they didn't make it, you know. My nerves are totally shot."

"Well, I'm betting that they did," Kaolla declared, determined to remain optimistic, even if her partner couldn't. "Tama-chan's radiation suit had a small rocket built into it, so if she remembered to use it, her and Turtle Lady will both be just fine."

"God, I hope you're right, Su. But what about the other residents that we failed to save? We know for sure that they got left behind," Keitaro despondently pointed out, rubbing tiredly at his face with his fingers, seemingly determined at this juncture not to be cheered up by anyone or anything. "I know that Motoko got grabbed by one of your rescue pods, so there's a good chance that she at least could have made it to safety, but what in the heck happened to Shinobu, Kanako and Kitsune?! I'll never be able to rest easy until I know for sure that they survived, too."

"Good point, Kei-Baby! I'd best check that out right now, while I've got the time."

As the fretting Keitaro watched, the now no-less anxious Su brought up the telemetry for her eight rescue pods onto the heads-up display screen in front of them. Then, to his elation, he saw the Molmol woman's face turn from apprehension to rapidly growing joy as she skimmed through the data.

"Lookies! According to the data we received before we made our jump, pods one, three and four had success," she informed him, newfound hope in her voice for their missing friends. "According to these readings, Pod One grabbed Motoko; Pod Three got Kanako and Pod Four, Kitsune. Then all three pods hauled ass up the big hill immediately behind the apartments, over the ridge, and down towards the safe locations I had plotted for them. My rescue pods worked just as well as I had hoped they would, thank goodness!"

"So – so you think that they all survived, then?!" Keitaro inquired, his tone almost pleading. "But you've got nothing on Shinobu? Nothing at all?!"

"Nix on her, sorry. And as for my buddy, Motoko, and Kitsune, well, I'm…still not sure," Su admitted, her spirits sinking somewhat again as she noticed the incomplete data from two of the pods. "Well, not one hundred percent, anyway. I'm positive that Kanako did make it – I got a signal back from her pod that her zero-time field had been activated. But the nuclear reactor blew while Kitsune's pod was still in flight – and the data being streamed from Motoko's pod suddenly cut out in mid-air, just behind the ridge, even before the reactor explosion had even happened. As to why her pod stopped transmitting so suddenly, your guess is as good as mine."

"Could – um – could Motoko's rescue pod have accidentally hit a tree and crashed?" the alarmed ex-ronin inquired, feeling a surge of worry speed up his already hammering heart at Su's disturbing words. "Or maybe the data uplink on her pod just malfunctioned and lost contact with the time machine? Could that be it?"

"I dunno, Kei-Baby. Either scenario's equally likely at this point."

"But all three girls were behind the hill when the atomic blast went off?" Keitaro anxiously persisted, grasping at any straw that would help him to believe that his long lost friends could still somehow be alive. "So they had the summit between them and the fireball, right?"

"Um, Kanako and Motoko were, yes," Su confirmed, looking thoughtfully sideways at the almost painfully hopeful expression on his face. "Kitsune's pod was just about to cross the ridgeline at the time of detonation, but my computer lost the uplink to her pod when we entered the wormhole, so…I can't say for sure whether it was caught in the explosion, or not. Sorry."

"Oh, crap! But if Kit's pod was hit by the blast, could it have survived the electromagnetic pulse and the shockwave, and then made it to safety…?"

"Well, the old map of the area that I planned our rescue mission with said that it is about one-and-a-half kilometers from where the Hinata Apartments used to stand, to the top of the hill that backed them. Over that distance, and with the pod only seconds away from crossing the top of the hill at the time of the explosion, I'd have to say 'yes' as the answer to your question, Kei-Baby. The rescue pods are made of the same reflective metal as our time machine, so they're fully shielded against electromagnetic radiation, as well as being very heat-resistant. Besides, the pods were programmed to dip straight down and hug the reverse slope once they had crossed the ridgeline. So, like with Motoko and Kanako, the hill itself would have shielded Kitsune and her pod from the worst effects of the aftermath."

"Yeah, that's what I was hoping, as well," Keitaro sighed out, closing his eyes as he slumped back down into his padded reclining seat, rubbing at his forehead again. "Good! At least I know now that Kanako's safe, and that there's a very good possibility that Kitsune and Motoko are, too. And even if we aren't bringing them back home with us right now, as we had hoped, that's definitely something to be grateful for, isn't it?"

"Yup! Oh, yeah, before I forget, now that we've proved that my time machine does work, we should be able to take another trip backwards to search for our friends again in maybe a week or so," Su smugly declared, to her partner's astonishment and delight. "I now have the exact spatial calculations and four dimensional co-ordinates we need to make another time jump back to 2002. Even better, they are precise enough for me to narrow down our time of arrival to a day or so after the worst of the effects of the nuclear explosion have dissipated. That's why I left our end of the wormhole back in 2002, instead of bringing it back to Pararakelse Island with us."

"What? We can? That's great!"

"Ya think?! Nyahahaha! I thought that you'd be pleased to hear that juicy little titbit of info, Kei-Baby. This ain't over yet!"

Su then explained to the overjoyed Keitaro why she hadn't used the zero-time field projected by their time machine to slow down the runaway nuclear chain reaction inside her sabotaged reactor when they had first arrived back at the apartments. The reason for not utilizing it was actually pretty straightforward. Had the zero-time field been switched on upon their arrival in Su's burning jungle room, no one, including Tama-chan, would have been able to exit their ship without being instantly frozen in time. Nor could the exterior-mounted rescue pods have been launched. Their attempted rescue of their friends would have been over before it had even begun.

"And quite apart from that reason, Kei-Baby, both of us were needed to search for the others," Kaolla pointed out to him. "The Hinata Apartments building was far too large for only one person to do it, even with the extra couple of minutes we could have gained if I had stayed behind at the controls and switched on the zero-time field after you and Tama-chan had made it safely out of its range."

"I see… I understand now, Su. But even so, with all of the planning and preparation that we did for this rescue mission, we should have been able to do a better job of it! Granted, we managed get Naru and Kuro on board with us, Kanako is safe, and we're pretty sure that Kitsune and Motoko are too. But I just wish I knew right now what happened to Shinobu, Tama-chan and Mutsumi!"

"I'm really worried about Shinobu, too, Kei-Baby. But since neither you nor I could find her there, and she left the others a note, I think that maybe she went out for the day," Su speculated, hope on her tanned face as her fingers danced across her keypad. " And, as for the other two, we'll know that in only a couple of minutes. I'm re-routing power around the burnt out cables right now. And the automatic diagnostic and self-repair system for the sensor system is about half-done… Hey! Have you gotten Naru up off the floor back there, and buckled her in yet?"

"Oh, shoot! I'd best get my ass into gear and see to her right now," Keitaro exclaimed, his hands now working to unclip his seat buckles once again. "Naru should be waking up pretty soon, so I want her to be securely strapped into one of the passenger seats before she does, or else she's liable to hand me my head for tasering her before I can even start to explain why I did what I did."

"Oh, yeah, about Naru," Su spoke up, figuring that she had best let her partner in on a little something that she had done to his ex-idol. "When I first got back to the time machine, on my way in I gave her a quick shot of tranquillizer. So don't expect much of a response from her until well after we get back home, Kei-Baby."

"What?! Why on earth did you do that, Su?" Keitaro yelped, freezing half out of his seat, a strange mixture of alarm and confusion warring on his face. Maybe that was because he wasn't sure in his own mind just yet whether to be relieved or not that the girl he had loved would be out for a considerable while longer. Even though a quarter century had passed by since he had been the unwilling recipient of her anger, he still vividly remembered what her right cross to his jaw had felt like. And Keitaro was in no hurry to experience that sensation again any time soon – especially since he was sure that upon her awakening, Naru would remember him tasering her. He was equally positive that, at their next meeting, her instinctive reaction to that shocking experience at his guilty hands would in all probability be both swift and exceedingly violent.

"Well, I didn't want her to recover from your taser too soon, and get in the way of our rescue attempts – which you and I both know she would have done," Su sheepishly explained. "She'll be out for at least another hour, so you can breathe easy for a while yet. You'll be getting your lumps after we land. Nyahahaha!"

"Oh...yeah, I see your point," Keitaro remarked, managing a faint smile of his own. "But I'd best strap Naru in all the same, just in case there's any unexpected air turbulence once we exit the wormhole above our oasis."

"Okies. I'll keep working on the sensors."

As the understandably nervous Keitaro cautiously and very gently scooped up from the floor the limp form of his long-lost dream girl, and transferred her onto one of the comfortable seats built into the left wall of the passenger compartment, Su industriously twiddled around with her controls, trying to speed up the pace of their repairs. A minute or so later, a loud 'beep' and a flashing green light on her instrument panel signalled to her the success of her endeavors.

"Okey-doo, our rear sensors are booting up again, Keitaro," his attractive pilot called back to him, as he struggled to do up Naru's restraints. "I'm not getting any visuals from the rear cameras yet, but the microwave radar tracking system has just come back on line - hey, I think I just got a ping? Yep, there it is - a good, steady reading. And I'm now picking up the locator beacon signal too! Something's following us up the wormhole, and I betcha I know just who it is! Yaay! Tama-chan and Turtle Girl made it, Kei-Baby, they made it!"

"They did? Oh, thank god!" Keitaro yelled, palpable relief on his now overjoyed face as he dashed back towards his seat, having just that moment finished buckling the limp and drooling Naru very securely into her own one. "But are you absolutely sure about-?"

"Yep, again! We've got visual back now, too, and at full magnification, I can even see them on screen. Right there, Kei-Baby! See?"

As his eager eyes gazed upon the distant and fuzzy black silhouette of Mutsumi, her hands on her antennaed head, doing a gentle, slow motion spin in their wake down the rotating purplish vortex of the space-time wormhole, Keitaro suddenly felt as if the weight of the entire world had just lifted off his shoulders.

"Wow! You're right! 'Whew!' Quite apart from Mutsumi, the kids would have killed me if Tama-chan had been lost-"

"Hold it! You'd best strap yourself back in and get ready for a jolt or two. We're coming up on the Pararakelse Island end of the wormhole right now," Su interrupted him, a grin on her face and contentment in her voice at them being now only moments away from successfully completing their dangerous mission and making it back home in one piece – albeit, without as many of their friends as she had hoped they would retrieve. Still, thanks to her, Keitaro and Tama-chan, with the tiny turtle and Mutsumi's miraculous appearance in the wormhole to their rear, it now looked like most, if not all, of the Hinata Apartment residents had at least managed to survive Doomsday. So, even though Shinobu, Kanako, Motoko and Kitsune were still back in 2002, Su was intensely grateful for that small mercy, at least.

"What, already?" the astonished Keitaro queried his pilot, as he hurriedly followed her sound advice with regards to his seating. "But it's only been a few minutes since we left 2002…!"

"Yup, but since we're travelling back home through my captive wormhole, we avoid the Negative Universe entirely on our return trip to 2027, remember?" Kaolla chuckled. "In the Negative Universe, we had to travel for almost half an hour at nearly the speed of light – complete with its time-dilation effect on us - to get back to 2002. This wormhole is a shortcut that bypasses both normal and negative space-time directly back to our starting point above Pararakelse Island. Since it's only going to take us about five minutes to return to 2027, it may seem to us that we're actually moving far faster than the speed of light at the moment, but we're not. In fact, our cruising speed now is only…" Su consulted her speedometer, "…One hundred kilometers an hour."

"Um, draw me a diagram after we land, will you?" Keitaro finally answered, feeling his head begin to ache again as he reflected on the complexities of what Su had just told him. "Sorry, Su, I'm just too happy that Tama-chan and Mutsumi have survived to be able to pay proper attention to one of your physics lectures right now."

"Will do, Boss. Anyway, hang onto your hat," Su warned him, staring with satisfaction at the rapidly growing point of light on their front screen. "We'll be exiting the wormhole into 2027 in ten seconds. And I'm sure that there'll be a lot of people waiting down there in our home who'll be really glad to see us again!"

-:-:-:-:-:-

The Location: Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

The Date: 2002, Doomsday, one second after the reactor detonation.

Keitaro and Su no doubt would have both breathed out giant-sized sighs of relief had they known for sure that their suspicions about Shinobu being absent from the Hinata Apartments at the time of the disaster had actually hit the nail right on its head. Their dear friend hadn't been at the doomed locality the time of its total obliteration, after all.

And as to why Shinobu wasn't at the apartments at the time, there was a simple explanation. On that fateful morning back in 2002, after the younger Keitaro had left for town, and the fifteen-year-old Su had retired to her lab, the little blue-haired cook had received a surprise and most welcome visit from her mother. And after greeting her delighted daughter, in an incredibly well timed and fortuitous stroke of luck for the overjoyed girl's continued survival, Mrs. Maehara had then invited her shy little teen out for an afternoon's shopping with her in Yokohama.

Shinobu had eagerly accepted her mother's offer, the thrilled girl having already washed and hung out the laundry, her sole task for the day. And since it was Naru's turn to prepare the midday meal for the other boarders, she really didn't have anything to hold her back from taking some time off to enjoy herself. So, after leaving a note on the kitchen door to inform her friends that she wouldn't be back until later on that night, the excited teen and her mother had left the premises. After a quick stop off at the Hinata Tea Rooms for a cup of tea, it was off to the railway station for the happy pair.

The mother and daughter combo had boarded their train to Yokohama with plenty of time to spare. The E21 Series Electric Multiple Unit train, resplendent in its Shōnan color scheme of orange and green bodyside stripes, had departed Hinata City at 11:00 am, right on schedule – and, crucially, a full hour before the secretly pre-planned nuclear disaster was scheduled to occur in the now receding metropolitan area behind it.

Following the JR Tokaido Main Line, the train had arrived at Platform Five at Yokohama Station, in the center of the huge, sprawling city, well before lunchtime. Once there, the pair had disembarked from the train and headed for the station's bus stop, intending to go by bus to the shopping and dining area of Minato Mirai, for first a meal, and then an extensive and no-doubt highly enjoyable and expensive shop-fest!

Because of the extensive crowd in transit both to and from Yokohama Station, Shinobu and her mother had a ten-minute wait before they could board their bus. So to pass the time, they purchased two plastic bottles of hot tea from a vending machine, and then strolled out into an open area to enjoy the glorious, late summer day.

Just as they were finishing off their hot drinks, a bright flash of light, low down in the southwestern sky, abruptly attracted the attention of the Maehara ladies. The pulse of radiance was dazzling in intensity, almost as if the sun itself had momentarily twinkled into existence at a location further down the coastline of Sagami Bay.

A second or two later, the solid pavement under their feet unexpectedly lurched from a passing earth tremor. At the same time, in the blue and largely cloudless skies high above the city, something rippled past in a huge, barely visible and ever-expanding arc away from the epicentre of the glow on the distant horizon.

And as the powerful shockwave swept through their ephemeral forms, the drifting clouds actually jolted from the force of its passing. Several were shredded entirely, blown outwards in dissipating veils of mist.

"Oh my goodness! What on earth was that?" the bluenette's mother mused out loud, an uneasy feeling gripping her at the unnerving sight. "It's given me spots on my eyes! And just look at that brilliant glow shining on the horizon where it happened."

"I s-saw it, too," Shinobu nervously replied, her wide, dark blue eyes riveted on the expanding corona of white light. "I wonder what is causing such a bright light?"

"I have no idea, Shinobu," Mrs. Maehara admitted. "But whatever it is, it seems to be located somewhere back down the coast in the direction that we arrived from, maybe even near Hinata City…"

Then they both suddenly squinted and flinched as an eye-wateringly luminous cloud of vast proportions slowly rose up above the line of rooftops – a boiling, rolling bubble of fire that resembled nothing so much as a smoke-wreathed mushroom of white-hot lava. As the cityscape brightened around them, the surprised mother and daughter felt their bare faces and arms suddenly warm up from the all-enveloping wave of radiant heat flooding down upon Kanagawa Prefecture from the incandescent mushroom cloud.

Almost as one, the surrounding crowd of awestruck pedestrians froze into place, worried chatter arising from amongst the startled knots of people as they speculated on the cause of the phemonenon they were now witnessing. Before the mushroom cloud had billowed up into full view, not many of the shocked and disbelieving people had even a clue as to what had just happened down to the southwest. But now, more than a few of them jumped to the correct conclusion, and they were now losing no time in telling their fellow citizens just what the cause of it had to be.

As the shocking news spread like wildfire through the crowd, a chorus of panicky shouts and screams began to arise from the groups of commuters surrounding Shinobu and her mother, and frightened people began to rush off in all directions. Adding to the rapidly building chaos, a moment later the city's civil defence sirens began to wail, the spine-chilling sound rapidly gaining in both pitch and intensity as the warning devices wound up to their full volume.

"Mother! What's going on?" Shinobu cried out, clutching at her parent's arm. "Why is everybody running away?! Was that a bomb going off?"

"I don't know, dear. But whatever it is, it's bad-!"

Next second, a breaking news report caught the eye of the alarmed pair. On a huge billboard-sized TV screen on a nearby building, the pixelly image of a surprised looking newsreader could be seen receiving a single sheet of paper – or rather it had been urgently thrust in front of him. The well-dressed man glanced down at the words written on the memo, he did a double take, and his face lost most of its color as he reread the frightening message, just to make doubly sure that he wasn't seeing things.

The startled professional then made a visible but not entirely successful attempt to compose himself, before turning his shaky, sweaty gaze back towards the patiently waiting camera.

'Ladies and gentlemen, I…I have just received word that an atomic explosion has just occurred further south in Kanagawa Prefecture. M-more details as they come to hand…!'

Then the shocked newsreader turned his pale face away from the camera lens once again, to speak in a low, urgent tone to someone just out of picture – unfortunately, in the heat of the moment, without turning his microphone off first.

'Holy shit, Nakada-san, is this report really true? The bloody government hasn't changed 'April Fools Day' to today without my knowledge, have they? Or is this some goddamn prank you're playing on me to make me look stupid in front of our viewers, just because I slept with Midori-chan in reception before you even got to ask her out, you asshole?'

'Craaap! Turn the fucking microphone off if you wanna rub it in to me about my lack of a love life, the hidden person hissed in an outraged whisper back to the glowering, suspicious-looking newsreader. 'You're still on the bloody air, Shiraishi, you imbecile! And, yes, Shit-for-Brains, whether you want to believe it or not, our sources are telling us that a fucking atomic bomb really did go off down south a couple of minutes ago! Just read the god-damned teleprompter when it comes up, and shut the hell up with your gloating about you humping Midori-chan, or I'll kick your fucking-!'

Right then, the audio cut out and the screen simultaneously went blank. A moment later, a picture of a burning cartoon rat, its eyes smoking and with its bared teeth wedged into a frayed electrical cable, appeared on the screen. Above the fried rodent were the words, 'Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.'

As this happened, the sweat-dropping Shinobu and her equally stunned mother turned their gob-smacked faces to stare with open-mouthed bewilderment at each other. But before anything could be said, their attention was grabbed by a second big screen on another nearby building, this one showing the rather staticky image of a different newsreader from a rival network.

'…According to reports just now flooding in from various surviving aircraft and helicopters, the epicentre of the nuclear explosion seems to have been centered either in, or just above, the township of Hinata Hot Springs. Hinata City itself has suffered severe damage, and many areas are well ablaze. There are now gale-force winds feeding the firestorm, and all aircraft are being warned to flee the area immediately. Oh my god, this looks bad, people…

Attention! Here is a local civil defence warning! Because of the danger of radioactive fallout, all citizens in the Yokohama area are advised to seek shelter without delay! Please seek the nearest shelter, and remain indoors until further notice!'

As if to emphasize that this life-altering event was really, truly occurring, a deep, rolling boom, like that of distant thunder, came faintly over the sound of the traffic and sirens to the disbelieving ears of the citizens of Yokohama. The reverberation of the atomic detonation had finally reached the city, providing the final, grim confirmation of the unspeakable tragedy that was even now claiming the lives of countless thousands of inhabitants further south along Sagami Bay.

"It…it happened at Hin-Hinata Hot Springs…?" Shinobu stuttered through her suddenly pale and trembling lips, that familiar name grabbing her attention away from the chaos now surrounding her. A second later, the full realization of what must have just happened to her home and her friends hit the teen like a bucket of icy water, freezing her slender body to its core despite the heat from the towering nuclear funeral pyre still beating at her exposed areas of skin.

"Oh my god…?! Oh my god!! Sempai!! Sempai!! Everybody, please don't die?! Don't leave me all alone…?!"

Then, as a rising breeze began to blow towards the conflagration in the south, the entire streetscape seemed to spin in slow motion around the frantically screaming schoolgirl. Shinobu's shocked, grief-stricken mind was rapidly being overcome by the frightful knowledge that her dear friends were now almost certainly all dead, and that she would never, ever see them again.

It was too much for the distraught young woman to bear. Shinobu felt faint; her whole body seemed to be detached from her numbed, drifting mind and her legs could no longer support her weight. She slumped limply forward, the pavement rushed up to meet the swooning teen, and soothing darkness engulfed her.

-:-:-:-:-:-

Next Chapter: The startling conclusion! (Or will it be? The end, I mean.) All is revealed to Naru. And with Naru now alive, Keitaro has a hard choice to make. Just what is he going to do, now that his promise girl is back in his life?

Stay tuned!