Chapter 10: Planning a Quest

The following morning Zakuro hesitated outside the door of the Café Mew Mew. She went over everything in her head – all of the information, all of the plans, all of the objections she expected the two men to make. All was ready, she decided. She pushed on the door, and it opened, and she walked in, her stride showing all of the confidence in the world, all of the confidence she did not have.

Keiichiro looked up from a table he had been cleaning; Ryou was lounging against the wall, his arms crossed. He looked up slowly, with a bored look on his face. "Zakuro-san," he said in a low voice. "This had better be good. We have a lot of things to do, and we don't usually hang around the café at this hour of the morning."

Zakuro ignored his tone as well as his words. "Ryou. Keiichiro-san. Don't be so cold to me. I have information, important information, and I need to talk to you two alone. This is as good a place as any, isn't it?"

Keiichiro stopped cleaning the table. "It was your tone, Zakuro-san. Your words may have been fine, but your tone was very demanding. It was as if you were summoning us here. That is not your style. And so: what's going on?"

Zakuro took a seat at one of the tables, and gestured to the others that they should sit at the table as well. After a little hesitation, Keiichiro did so; and Ryou had no option except to do the same. Then the two men looked at her, Keiichiro with questioning eyes, Ryou with very demanding ones.

Without a word, Zakuro reached into her pocket and drew out an object, which she placed on the table. It was a Mew Mew pendant.

"So you're quitting?" Ryou said, in a hard tone. "Why?"

Zakuro opened the top button of her shirt, and showed that she was wearing her pendant under it.

The two men stared at the object in front of her on the table. Ryou asked, "Then what is that thing? Is it real, or a fake?"

"It's very real," Zakuro said. "It reacts to my pendant." She took it in her hand, and stood up. "I think it's Ichigo's."

Ryou leaped up from his chair. "Where did you get it? Did you find it?" His voice grew very loud and hard. "Or did you do something to Ichigo?"

Zakuro looked into Ryou's eyes. "Do not accuse me!" she said bitterly. Anger flashed in her dark eyes.

Keiichiro, still sitting, spoke quietly. "Zakuro, you have been acting very mysteriously. If we wonder what you're up to, or what your motives are, understand that you have invited our doubts." He looked at her with calm, and calming, eyes. "Now, please tell us. Where did you get the pendant?"

Zakuro looked at Keiichiro, and away from Ryou. "I got it from Mint. I took it from the safe in her bedroom, while Mint was passed out on her bed."

"And where did Mint get it?" Ryou demanded. He did not even ask why Mint was passed out on her bed.

Zakuro shrugged. "I think she stole it from Ichigo, the night that Ichigo disappeared." She sat back down. "I think Mint is a traitor. I fear Berry is one, too."

Ryou did not sit back down, but began pacing, and nearly raving. "What's going on here? Tell us!"

Zakuro sat back in the chair, still holding the pendant. "Lettuce was the one that figured things out," she said. "Lettuce, Berry, and Mint all have a big envy thing going against Ichigo. Lettuce crushes on you, Ryou - you know that – and she doesn't appreciate that you have this obsession with Ichigo."

"I don't have an obsession!" Ryou objected.

"Three thousand pictures of her in your screen saver pretty much adds up to an obsession," Zakuro said.

Ryou's eyes popped wide open. "How did you know that? You've been snooping my stuff?" he demanded angrily.

Zakuro shook her head. "Believe me, I'll get to that. But as I said, Lettuce has this big envy thing against Ichigo. I think we should all know that." The men said nothing, and the dark-haired girl continued, "And Berry is envious because she wants to be the star, and Ichigo gets all the attention."

Ryou snorted. "Next to Ichigo, Berry is as nothing. Ichigo is far more powerful and more brave."

Keiichiro added, "And Ichigo's a lot more real. There's a phoniness about Berry that keeps me from completely trusting her, the way we all trusted Ichigo."

Zakuro was taken aback by those last words. It was not like Keiichiro to speak in such judgmental terms about any of the girls. She looked at him for several seconds, and then went on. "And Mint, if you didn't know, has this thing for me." The men both looked at her with blank faces, and Zakuro was not surprised that they had not noticed. Men missed so many things! Then she continued, "Well, she thinks that I had something going with Ichigo. I didn't, but she was insanely jealous about that."

"So that's what was going on," Ryou muttered. "I could tell something was wrong, but I didn't know what." Zakuro was quite surprised that the man had noticed any problem at all.

"The three girls plotted against Ichigo," Zakuro continued. "That much I am sure of, because Lettuce told me, and she was part of it. After a while the other two closed Lettuce out of their plans, because Lettuce is too soft-hearted. But I do know that Lettuce helped them hack into your computer, Ryou." The man snorted again, but Zakuro just raised her eyebrows and then went on. "Your password, Ryou – mewichigo7? Now, please don't tell me there's no obsession." The man grunted and turned away for a second. Zakuro ignored him and kept speaking. "I think that they used your computer to contact Kisshu. Is that the way you contact the aliens, Shirogane? Through your computer?"

Ryou nodded. "It works very much like email. The signal is sent through a wormhole that the aliens use, so it only takes about half an hour to get a message through. Otherwise, it would take years."

"Then it all comes together," Zakuro said. "I've been saying that I am the one who thinks this, but it's Lettuce who figured it out. She knew that they hated Ichigo, and she knew they used your computer. She – and I – think that they contacted Kisshu, who still obsesses over Ichigo. Ah – see, Ryou, you're not the only one!" She smiled the tiniest bit before getting serious again, while Ryou turned away again, hiding his face. "They must have set a date for their move. On that evening Berry picked a fight with Ichigo, and then deliberately dumped a tray of desserts on her. When Ichigo went in to the dressing room to get cleaned up, Mint went with her. Now note how unlike Mint that is – she doesn't go out of her way to help anyone else, especially someone that's hurting. Anyway, we believe when Ichigo went into the shower, Mint used that opportunity to steal her pendant, and, I'm thinking, her Masha. On the way home, she was attacked by Kisshu, and she couldn't transform. Kisshu kidnapped her and took her back to Lovatron, or whatever they call their planet."

"What the hell's Lovatron?" Ryou objected.

But Keiichiro had a more serious objection. "There was no sensor evidence of any alien activity. And when we contacted the aliens, they said they hadn't been here."

"Which alien did you deal with?" Zakuro asked.

"Pai," Ryou said. "Did you think we'd deal with that flake Kisshu?"

"I would guess that if this scenario is true, Pai had no clue about it," Keiichiro said. "It's stupid and irrational. To risk everything – even war – to get Ichigo? That's completely unlike Pai."

"But it's everything like Kisshu," Zakuro said. "And as to why there was no sensor evidence, I think that was the plan. We figure that Kisshu landed somewhere outside of the range of our sensors. They do have a limited range, don't they?"

"Maybe 200 to 250 kilometers," Ryou said.

"Yes, that makes sense," the dark-haired girl said. "So Kisshu lands out of range. The traitors know that Ichigo goes home by the same route every day – through that park. They arrange it so that Ichigo goes home early and alone, and they make sure that she doesn't have her pendant or her robot. Then Kisshu attacks her and overpowers her physically, maybe knocks her out or drugs her. He takes her back to his space ship and flies back to Lovatron with his prize. And there's no evidence of any magic or alien energy for your sensors, and no body or physical evidence for the police to find."

"Then you're saying you believe Ichigo's alive," Keiichiro said.

"Yes," Zakuro responded. "Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part. But the whole story makes sense. On the one hand, Mint did have Ichigo's pendant." She held it up. "And on the other, I don't think that Mint and Berry have it in them to murder Ichigo and hide the body. They have to be guilty of something, or Mint would not have had the pendant in her safe. She had it, and she hid it from us. That means that she's guilty of something. If she had just found the pendant, she would have told us. So she's guilty. Lettuce says that Mint and Berry talked a lot about how they wished that Kisshu had taken Ichigo away, back to his planet. I think they made sure that happened."

"But if Ichigo is alive, she's off on Lovatron – like that name! – with Kisshu." Keiichiro said. "But that's light-years away. We'll never be able to get her back – unless we can get there somehow. We need to get the aliens to bring her back, or to bring us to their planet."

"That's where the plan gets hard," Zakuro said sadly. "How could we get them to take us there?"

Ryou had been standing a distance away, with his back to the others. They both knew: he was furious over what Kisshu and the two traitors had done to the girl he did "not" obsess over. But then he turned back suddenly. "Mew Aqua," he said. "They would do anything for more of it. Anything. Their whole planet and all of their lives depend on it."

Keiichro said, "Yes, we have some. We've been finding little fragments every now and again. But the stuff is precious. I wonder if we'd have to give them all of it."

Zakuro exploded. "Do you mean to tell me that you'd keep that damned stuff and let Ichigo rot on that damned alien planet?"

Keiichiro was silent for several seconds, calming the angry girl with his eyes. "No, Zakuro. But I really don't think we need to use it all. Maybe a quarter of what we've found, at most, would be so helpful to them that they'd give us a ride to er, ah, Lovatron in exchange for it. And let us bring Ichigo back, if she's there."

Ryou nodded. And then he said, "The real question is, just who should go? We can't all go – it will look like an invasion."

"I will go," Zakuro said. "And that's NOT debatable. That's why I'm keeping my hands on this pendant."

Keiichiro looked doubtful; but Ryou nodded. "And I will go."

Zakuro shook her head. "Given your obsession with Ichigo, there's too big a chance that you'll fly off the handle and make a mess of everything."

Ryou crossed his arms. "No debate," he said. "I'm the head of the Mew Project. And besides, I have the Mew Aqua fragments – all of them except for that one little fragment that you kept, Zakuro." She raised her eyebrows, and Ryou smiled a bit. "You forget, my sensors – they pick up Mew Aqua above all else. You probably have that fragment on you now. You usually do."

Zakuro sat silently for several seconds. She had thought her Mew Aqua fragment was a secret. Then she said, "I'm sure that you want to come, too, Keiichiro. But someone has to hold down the fort here. Or else we'll have to shut down the café for a month or more."

"I would do far better than either of you if negotiation with the aliens is required," the dark-haired man said pensively. "But you are right. Someone has to keep things going here, and not just for a month. I hate to say it, but if you try this, there's a really good chance that you won't come back alive. Someone has to make sure that the Mew Project continues. I guess that must be me." He hung his head.

For almost a minute there was silence, and then Zakuro spoke slowly. "There is one more that must go."

"Who's that?" Ryou asked. "If you want backup, I suppose it would be Lettuce. If Mint and Berry are traitors, we can't let them in on this. And Pudding is far too young."

"Lettuce would love to go, I am sure," Zakuro said. "But I am just as sure that her parents would not allow it, and Lettuce in the end would obey them. But it will torture her not to go. She feels a whole boatload of guilt over this whole thing. She really isn't a traitor, but she was a part of the whole plot that hurt Ichigo – maybe killed her. Remember, we don't know if she's alive."

"We could find out for sure," Ryou said with gritted teeth. "We could get the truth out of those two traitors."

"Torture?" Keiichiro said. "No. And besides, that would be the end of the Mew Project."

"It's probably the end of the Mew Project anyway," Ryou said sadly.

But Zakuro shook her head. "As long as you have Ichigo, you can afford to lose Berry and that creep Mint." She stood up from the table. "The one that has to go is Aoyama. He might just be in the way, and we might get him killed. But if we go to save his Ichigo, and leave him behind, it will destroy him. He loves her, worships her, but it goes beyond that. He was born to be her protector."

"We just won't tell him," Ryou said with somewhat of a sneer. The girls weren't the only ones around the Café Mew Mew capable of envy and jealousy.

"Then if we come back with Ichigo, instead of bringing joy, we will bring misery," Zakuro said. "He would not be able to live with the shame that someone else went to save his beloved, and he did not go. No. He goes, unless he can't. And be sure: he will go. He would give up everything else, including his own life, in an effort to save Ichigo."

"Then I'll contact the aliens right now," Ryou said. "Not Kisshu – if he has Ichigo, he'd hide her. I'll call Pai and offer him the Mew Aqua fragment. We'll see how quickly they can come. And we'll be ready when they do."

Keiichiro nodded. "We have to hide this from the rest of the girls. Keep it a secret! The traitors must never know."

And to that Zakuro nodded, and said, "If we do find Ichigo alive and bring her back, I want to be there when she meets that filthy traitor Mint." She did not even mention Berry. Then she turned to leave, and said, "I'll contact Aoyama. And he'll keep our secret." Then she walked to the door and left the building.