Black Waltz: Hello, everyone! It's me again and I apologize for not writing for a while, I have my classes to thank for that, especially since I had English 2 which I had to write papers that equal to nine hundred words and have to be perfect for the teacher, as if I don't have enough stress from writing already. Anyway, disregard what I said about me doing a rewrite of this story since my friend tells me that everything looks good to him. I put the note up so I could get some space between the reviewers and writing for a while. I enjoy everything you do to help me but being pushy isn't a way of helping, no offense.

Anyway, please enjoy and hope it's a good one.


Shinobu looked at the plates she was washing, another day without Keitaro here and things were turning as cheerful as a cemetery. The letters, in combination with his absence at the place set it into a mood that was full of gloom; everybody was filled with misery. They understood that they were at fault for making him leave. They knew what they were doing to him that got him to leave and never to go apologize to him for it.

Naru cried day after day and wouldn't come out her room. Shinobu could hear her apologizing herself about everything she had done and knew it was all her fault he had left. She kept saying to herself that if he came back, she would learn to control her temper and be a different, nicer person for him and even tell him that she finally loved him.

Motoko was another person also affected. The sword maiden trained for hours and hours each day to eliminate the pain of what she had did to someone who never meant any harm to her or anybody in the building. Starving herself was another option because she say it as more punishment; she also had dreams about how she would never feel free and wanted to be a different person instead of the stone-faced samurai she always was.

Next was Kitsune, who downed another bottle of sake and hurled it at the wall in pity and sadness. Kitsune couldn't remember how many times she played tricks on him and conned money from for her own selfless needs—maybe it was more than she could remember, if she could remember. Another one who used alcohol to help with her pain but also hurting herself as her friend Naru found her on the toilet vomiting from too much booze. They were afraid they would find her dead one morning due to alcohol poisoning from her binge drinking.

Su tried making a tracking device to pinpoint Keitaro's whereabouts. The girls were optimistic with her inventions but none of them seemed to do what she wanted and she gave up with making her toys, as she liked to call them. Instead of sleeping with Motoko, she slept by herself, changed her eating habits, and stopped chasing Tama around the dorm.

Speaking of which, other people, including Seta, Granny Hina, Kanako, Sarah, as well as Keitaro's parents, were feeling depressed about his leave from Japan. It didn't surprise Shinobu about him wanting to leave... truth be told, why would he want to stay in a place filled with psychotic women who'd love nothing better than to send him to an early grave?

"Please be okay Sempai," she said to herself, putting the last of the dishes up.

After setting away her apron she decided to pay Haruka and visit, she needed somebody to talk to and Su or Sarah weren't of any help since they were too depressed. Looking inside the teashop he saw her wiping down the last of the tables and went inside. "Hi, Haruka. Do you mind if you and I talk?"

Looking up from her cleaning, she smiled. This time there wasn't a cigarette hanging from her mouth. "Shinobu, come in. I'll make us some tea," she said going into the kitchen while the petite cook sat at one of the tables waiting. She looked around the place, seeing it was a place that her senpai used to come and talk to his aunt when things got out of control with those girls and that dormitory. Haruka came back out with two steaming cups and placed one in front of Shinobu.

"So, why'd you want to talk about?"

Grasping her tea, she blew on it to cool it then took a sip and set it down, still holding it. "Did senpai leave because of me?"

Haruka was shocked at first but composed herself; she knew the answer to that. "No, you didn't do anything wrong. If somebody should take the blame, it's me because I didn't do anything to help him. I mean, I'm family and family should help one another, so no, you had nothing to do with this problem."

"I... I really liked him."

Haruka chuckled at that. "It wasn't too hard to figure out."

She looked at the woman with a stunned expression. "You knew?"

"I knew for quite a while so don't look so surprised. I saw how you always wanted to say something to him but was too scared to do it. All you had to do was just go up and talk to him, that's all, but you would run away like a chicken with its head cut off."

Shinobu's shoulders dropped and her head lowered. Haruka said this and put a hand on her head, ruffling her hair lightly. "Hey I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, I'm just telling you the truth."

"I know and you're right, I'm always running away because I'm afraid of what to say and how he'll react to it. I wish I was like Kitsune and had the courage to just up to him like he does and not get embarrassed. I wish I could just kiss him and tell him how I feel."

Haruka blinked in shock, choking on her tea. She set down the cup, coughed and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. "That's putting it a little extreme, Shinobu."

"I don't care!" she lashed out, slamming her tiny fists onto the table. "If I was older, I could tell him how and I felt about him and let him know about everything I wanted to be for him! I could be a better person that Naru never tried to be."

Haruka just sat in silence drinking her tea while listening to Shinobu's emotions take over. 'Sometimes I worry about this kid,' she thought to herself.


In her room, Motoko was deep in meditation. She was refusing to believe that Keitaro had wanted her sister to join her in getting drunk and high in an American city. Her sister was an honorable warrior and wouldn't succumb to this kind of perversion; he probably had his way with her by hurting her and then forcing her to join him in that city... she was sure of it.

An hour had passed and she comes out of her meditation, still carrying a furious look on her face about it all. "She just went back to Kyoto to continue training... she wouldn't turn to a life of drugs... ever. My sister has a pure heart of honor; she wouldn't be easily persuaded to do something that would make her hurt her body." She went to the armor and kneeled in front of it, praying to it to hope that her sister doesn't turn to the side of evil because of the pervert's ways. "If something happens to her, give me the strength to look her in the face without fear," she said before getting up from beside the armor.

Motoko knew that her sister married a male but she saw them as an abomination because they took her sister away from the warrior's path and to something she didn't want her to become. She didn't want to become weak her entire life and have her life be controlled by a man. That's the reason why she didn't like men, but her sister would probably say otherwise.


In the jungle that was her room, Su was busy at work trying to fix her device that would pinpoint the location of her big brother. Even though she started to sleep by herself and not with Motoko, she still wanted to bring him back because she loved to always be by him. All the other times he was here made her feel at ease but since he was gone for so long she started to feel dull and lifeless on the inside—her cheerful persona was gone, she didn't try to damage the dormitory and she stopped chasing Tama around.

"This has to work, I know it," she said, going up to her new Keitaro tracker and see if the device would hopefully work this time. After some tinkering, she managed to get a signal but it didn't last long and disappeared. When she decided to hope that her inventions would do some good, she kept at it day and night working on it until she had gotten her big brother's signal. There were times when she couldn't get a signal at all and frustrated herself trying to figure it out.

It was a first for her to get frustrated. Maybe it was because she wanted to see Keitaro again to become a better person to him when she did find him. The dark cloud over Hinata was enormous and he was the only person who could shed light onto their life.


Hours later, a knock came from the door of the building. It was Seta, who wanted to know how everything was okay. Since his favorite part-timer had left, everything in his archeology had lost some of its value—it wasn't the same without his enthusiasm there since he always wanted to be an excavator. He didn't hear about the letters from Liberty City and didn't think he'd want to know.

He had never been to Liberty City but he heard about it—it was the worst place in America for anybody who'd want to go out on their own. Even though he trusted and knew his part-timer well, he didn't think he'd have the courage to survive in a dangerous city on his own, it wasn't his thing.

Seta walked through the halls of the building through the halls, finding Haruka on the couch sipping a cup of tea. Ever since Keitaro had left Japan, she had changed—she no longer smoked, she didn't care that people questioned her about her age, she rarely slept and ate… she was a mess.

Seta sighed and sat down next to her. "You're still beating yourself up over this?"

Haruka chuckled at this then spat out, "Was it that hard for you to figure it out?"

"All I'm saying is that you shouldn't be like this just because he's gone. You should have realized that everything he went through was your fault."

"You don't think I know what was going on here? The only reason I didn't do anything was because I wanted him to stand up to himself!"

"And what about his grandmother, does she know about all this?"

Haruka sighed. Telling her mother about what happened was something she was afraid of because she was worried what the elderly woman was going to do to the girls. Once she told her that what the girls were doing, along with the proof on video, the evidence was clear to her and Hina Urashima was so stoked with anger she would make the devil cower in fear.

"She knows and I saw every time I step into that room, it feels like ice is inside there even though there isn't any. That's how upset she is with everyone, me included."

"I guess I can't blame her then."


Koalla was still going at with her invention to find her brother and bring him back. Even though she was a bit destructive when it came to playing, she loved him very much. Her sister was another topic since she heard from Haruka she was back in town but was told she wasn't going to be in the city for long since she said she had to go back home to her country.

"But why would big sister come here and why didn't I become an adult?" she asked herself. With her invention finished, she pressed a few buttons and kept her fingers crossed… it happened. A large map appeared in her device as America with a blinking dot. "It works! I found him!" she said, jumping to her feet and rushing out of her room to tell everyone about good news.

Su rushed out of her room and to the common room where everybody was all sitting around in silence, including Mutsumi. She had heard about Keitaro leaving Hinata Sou and wanted to be there to help anybody with their problems and make sure they were doing okay; truth be told, she wasn't doing so well herself on the inside. Even though the others were guilty of their own faults, she wasn't a saint either when it came to Keitaro.

With her being an amnesiac she had her fair share of getting Keitaro in the line of fire at certain moments when she didn't know about it. Hearing him leave Japan and head to America set her on a good point since she knew he would be happy in a new country with a new chance at a happy life, where he could sleep without worrying about being punted, hit, burned, or have his money stolen.

Mutsumi just smiled mentally before looking at the resident Mol-mol princess. "What's wrong Su?"

"I just found big brother Keitaro, I found him in America. When I saw where he was, it was a city called Liberty City."

"Are you sure that's where Urashima is?" Motoko asked.

"My inventions never let me down," Su said, still smiling. The resident mad genius left back to room and returned with her device; she pressed the buttons the exact way and the map appeared again with the blinking dot. "See, there's Keitaro! That's where he is in America."

Looking at the name of the place, Haruka looked closely. "Well, if he's there, I might as well tell mother about it."

"And I'll phone Keitaro's parents about it… they'll want to know where their son is," Shinobu said, going to the phone and dialing the number. She waited and waited while watching Haruka got back upstairs to her mother and tell her the news. Haruka was sweating all over but knew she had to suck it up and tell her what had happened. Inside her room, Hina hadn't budged but when she was told that they found Keitaro, the room temperature regulated back to normal as his grandmother smiled and wanted to know more.

His parents were also happy, too. Hearing that he had left Japan put them in shock—they didn't want him to leave and forget about them—and said they wanted to go with them to Liberty City to talk with him. Shinobu said she was going, too, so she could see her Sempai again. After both parties hung up, Shinobu went to her room to pack her things while each of them got the message and started to pack as well.

Hours had passed and everybody had packed what they needed and made preparations on flights to America to Liberty City.

This kind of thing was making everybody knowing that they would have Keitaro back when they go there while most of them wanted to talk to him about why he left in the first place, but they didn't know about Liberty City being a dangerous place.

Most of the times they hardly ever paid attention to the news but knew that some places in America were dangerous with the robberies and shootings. Motoko, as she laid in her futon, still couldn't get the idea of her sister going to America without continuing her sword techniques.

If Urashima does something to her, I won't hold myself back, she thought to herself.


Black Waltz: Another chapter for you, my friends. Sorry if it's late, but I have other things to worry about besides writing all day, such as trying to get back into school since I didn't do so well with online school. Also I've been reading The Town by Chuck Hogan, which I can say that is better than the movie even though I haven't finished reading it. So reading that will definitely help me writing this story.