Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

I'd just like to clarify about the last chapter. The thing they ordered Giroro to do was left vague because I didn't know what it was and was lazy, but I was going in the torture, execution direction with it. So I'd just like to clarify that.

It's so long because it's the kurumois chapter. You all knew this was going to happen. I am sorry.

He knew Saburo had warned him that if he mentioned anything to Kululu, he would be killed. But he was just so weirded out, so confused. Mois and Kululu? Really?

The Mois and Kululu in his dimension interacted, sure. They worked together sometimes, but Kululu was absolutely terrified of her. It was pretty well known and he imagined that Mois's opinion of Kululu was just a certain level of innocent tolerance.

Them dating in any dimension just seemed so surreal to him. And her being dead seemed even weirder.

He was sitting down by some barrels as Kululu passed him, and although he had promised not to mention anything, he did.

"You dated Mois?" His voice was incredulous, confused, and accusing at the same time. Kululu took a step back, sputtering for a moment.

"F-Fuyuki!" Saburo pulled out his knife, offended that Fuyuki had disobeyed him. Kululu glanced at Saburo, realizing that Saburo must have told him.

"Wh-what's it to you?" Kululu asked to try to regain his composure, glaring at both Fuyuki and Saburo.

"Well, it's just... as you know, I'm from a different dimension and I'm just a little confused... I knew Mois back there. She's a friend of mine." Fuyuki stumbled over his words.

Kululu stopped glaring. "She's your friend?" He lowered his hand, as if telling Saburo to put his knife away. Unhappily, he did so. Maybe this would be good for Kululu, talking to someone who didn't hate her.

"Yes." Fuyuki nodded.

"I-is... Is she okay? I mean in your dimension, is she... alive and well? Happy?" His voice was very quiet at the thought of his old girlfriend being in another dimension. It soothed him. She was no longer in his dimension, after all.

"Yes. She's fine. She's quite happy," said Fuyuki. "You two work together."

Kululu smiled. He'd be jealous of his other self, but Fuyuki had said it himself, Mois was happy and that was what mattered. He gave a small nod and sat down, soothed by even that little bit of information.

"Yeah. Mois and I were lovers," he finally told him after getting a far-off look. These words still shocked Fuyuki. "But that's not as important as your world. Tell me about it. Are Mois and I... Were we in love?"

Fuyuki tried not to make a very dramatic expression at the question. He never thought he'd hear from Kululu's mouth a question like that.

What can I tell him? No? He'd look so sad... He decided that sometimes a white lie was the best one. Telling him that Angol Mois was actually in love with someone else and that Kululu was terrified of her wouldn't do the best. Even if it had been Kululu himself who told him, it wasn't likely that people had the same relationships in different universes. "Yeah! Of course you're in love!" he said with a smile. Hopefully, the real Kululu would never learn about the lies he was spouting. He'd be dead before Kululu could even finish his laugh.

The Kululu in front of him smiled. "Ku, ku, ku. That's good." He sighed. "I guess now that you know, there's no reason to hide it. I'll tell you whatever you want about her ship and her, and maybe, just maybe we can all figure out how to beat it and take it from whoever likely stole it from her."

Fuyuki nodded. "I think you better just go over how the ship works and where it came from."

"Ku. The simple things like mechanics. I like it." He nodded. "Anyway Mois's people weren't Keronians or Pekoponians - "

"Angolians. They were Angolians," Fuyuki remembered.

"Correct. They were something called Angolians that belonged to no nation, and instead were aligned closely with the Gods..."

Fuyuki scratched his head. So magic and mythology and gods were in this world, too. He wondered if they were the thing that gave Saburo's talisman the power to make his ship invisible.

"Mois had an important job to make underwater earthquakes and new volcanoes, which they liked. So they granted her a ship to live in and make her work easier that would follow only her bidding," Kululu explained.

"She was a little overboard on the underwater earthquake thing though, wasn't she?" Saburo muttered to himself. He didn't remember any other Angolians that were that extreme. Kululu ignored him.

"It had the power to imprison lives that she had killed on land or on sea to work on the ship for her. They would possess their own corpses, kind of like ghosts, but with living material around them. And they had to follow her bidding and didn't require pay. It was pretty neat, if I do say so myself. Ku, ku, ku."

"So it was a ghost ship?" Fuyuki's eyes sparkled.

"Kind of. It floated on a sea of fog instead of the water. It really struck terror in people's hearts. When they saw her ship, 'Winter,' coming, they ran. I never went on it myself because when we were together I insisted on staying as far away from the water as possible, but she told me a bit about it," Kululu explained. Fuyuki scooted closer, listening intently.

Saburo cleared his throat. He was glad that his friend was finally talking about his history with Mois and in such a cheerful tone instead of just freezing up and crying, but he was a little curious himself about things that Kululu had never had the courage to tell him about. Mainly why they had fallen in love because he was still confused about it.

"Hey, umm... Buddy? If you're finally ready to talk about her, mind telling us about, you know the reason you and her were close?" He took a deep breath. "Before I met you, I'd just been terrified of the rumors of her, and I'd like... I'd like to know who she really was. The her you knew."

Kululu thought for a moment, but finally he nodded. "I guess I never told you before, and if it would help shed some light on how to defeat her ship, I'll do it."

Fuyuki was also a tiny bit curious about their history so he listened, but not as closely as he had with the ghost ship.

"It was before I was a pirate, before I met Saburo, long, long ago when I lived in a comfortable town as a surgeon..."

And soon Kululu had gone into a tale.

He hadn't been any surgeon. He had been an experimental surgeon. His job was simple - help people with extreme injuries or conditions by performing surgery. And he was good at his job.

There was just one problem - helping people. Kululu didn't enjoy helping people, instead he liked melding organs together. Liver and heart? Thought they couldn't work together, but after meshing them, you'd be wrong. Of course, some disgusting extreme conditions came with the procedure. The patients were usually monsters. And all Kululu did was laugh.

For some reason, most people didn't go to his medical bay. They avoided him best they could.

"I wonder why, Kululu." Fuyuki rolled his eyes sarcastically. He wasn't sure what this had to do with anything, but it frightened him to think about how Kululu turned people into monsters. It sounded a lot like him. No wonder most of the crew avoided him.

"What does this have to do with Mois? This is just your backstory," Saburo pointed out.

"Patience, patience," Kululu told them. "Ku, ku, ku. It gets to her eventually, but it's important to know my background."

Fuyuki didn't know if he wanted to hear Kululu's background.

It took years for it to finally happen, for all of the customers to stop coming to him, but finally Kululu was going out of business. He was dirt poor and that meant he couldn't buy the finer things in life, like curry.

He didn't know if people didn't come to his business because they were scared of becoming monsters or because he was dislikable. A little of both.

But being financial unstable, and having your namesake, your surgery office, going out of business was devastating. It was his purpose, the thing he was good at and liked doing. He hated his new situation.

Rumors were all around his city about him. He was like the freak that people just kind of laughed about. He could have been a threat years ago when he was in business, but now he was just a freak.

"I heard he's a quack." He heard people talking about him at the supermarket.

Kululu boiled in rage at the accusation. Out of all the things he wasn't, quack was at the top. He actually knew what he was doing and was good at his job if he tried.

"I heard he's a witch doctor aligned with the devil," someone else spoke.

That rumor wasn't nearly as bad. But it was still bad for business.

"I heard he is the devil!" said another.

Kululu glared. Maybe he would have to make his surgeries half-off to finally get business.

"It's too bad he's the only doctor in town," said another.

Ku! Yeah. They have to come to me. I'm the only doctor here... Kululu thought to himself.

"The richer people in town can just go across the country to that nicer and better doctor. What was her name? Pururu? She's so kind!" said another.

Kululu's brow furrowed. His rival in the medical field was Pururu, a sweet Keronian who got loads of customers. She was a medic and doctor, but not a surgeon.

If someone wanted a limb removed, it was best for them to come to him, but everything else Pururu covered. But man, could he chop off a limb nicely.

Kululu frowned as they talked about Pururu. All his normal customers had invested into moving to the town with Pururu. The rich could afford that.

And his customers dried up.

If only... If only the people in this town were forced to come to my surgery place. If we were attacked by the Pekoponians or some natural disaster. Then I could have business again. I could prove myself,thought Kululu.

No, he prayed to himself. Because he was in a deep dark hole of poverty. And he didn't want to have to quit doing the thing he loved and using his skills. But nobody was there for him. Nobody would come to his business.

"Wait... Wait a minute... Don't tell me you met Mois because she caused a natural disaster and forced people to come pay you to save their lives?" Saburo was disgusted.

"Ku, ku, ku. Yep!" Kululu smiled.

"People died in those tsunamis. My family died! And you liked her because she hurt enough people that they'd be forced to ask for surgery from you?" Saburo asked, shocked.

Kululu shrugged. "I'm just telling you how we met."

Fuyuki's face was blank. This sounded strangely accurate of how Kululu could fall in love with Angol Mois. Kululu in his world would have probably said, "sounds like me," and been done with it.

One day, a tsunami hit his town. People's lives and houses were ruined. Injuries and fatalities were all over the place.

It was Kululu's wonderland. But it was deeper than that. He didn't have a home to lose from the tsunami, so he would have died weeks later from lack of money and starvation. He hadn't eaten in days because of poverty. His business was all he had left, and he would have gone bankrupt the next day.

He hadn't had anything to lose from the tsunami. He hadn't fought back against it. But once it was over, someone came to him with money and begged him for surgery. Their arm had been crushed by rubble and they needed it removed.

Kululu grinned. "I can fix that. Ku, ku, ku." He happily helped everybody who came to him, which was a lot of people. Everybody had been ruined from this tsunami except him. But after a day of tough work, his business was credible from the populace. Overnight it turned into the light that saved their lives, and they all praised him.

Not only that, but he had the bodies of the dead to play with and meld into whatever he wanted. He could Frankenstein them into experiments, save the people alive, and get money.

The populace praised him as a hero who had saved them from the tsunami. They trusted him, but secretly, he praised the tsunami, the thing that had brought his business back to life, and brought him life back together.

Ku, ku, ku. The tsunami wasn't too bad. It definitely helped me. Kululu didn't want to show much of his emotions, but really the financial instability and poverty he had experienced had frightened him. He had been so hungry, so alone, as he drifted in the water of the tsunami. But the water that he feared had come to his town and saved him.

Thanks, tsunami. He knew the tsunami wasn't sentient, but he thanked it anyway.

He never forgot his debt to the tsunami. And it was no more than a few days later that he heard rumors of what had caused it.

"She's a goddess, I heard. But not the good kind. She just causes tsunamis any way she wants." He heard rumors about it, the goddess that had devastated their little inland town.

Ku, people are always trying to come up with an explanation for the easily explainable. Explain it through mythology and lore. It's dumb. Just like those occult maniacs, he thought to himself. He didn't believe in the goddess, that she had caused this tsunami. But Kululu now had many tsunami victims coming to him now that he was a credible surgeon. He was better with life-threatening injuries than Pururu. They knew he could deal with tsunami victims.

And each and every one of them told him the same story about the goddess, the only word the inlanders had for her, who caused tsunamis.

"She has three eyes and a million arms. She's pure evil."

"People say she's in charge of a ghost ship that floats on fog."

"She's the Lord of Terror. Why else would she cause these tsunamis?".

And before too long, Kululu was falling for their stories. He doubted she was real, but the mythology that they made up about her... He was slowly starting to believe it.

And unlike the rest, who were scared, he was thankful. Maybe she's the same as me. Just misunderstood. People don't get MY monster surgeries, after all. They say I'm some dangerous creature. Maybe she just wants to have a little fun, he thought to himself. That was how the first thought started, drawing similarities between them.

He kept insisting that he was a realist and didn't believe in her, just drew little pictures and made little shrines over ironic fun, but the floodgate was open. He was a full secret fan of this supposed Lord of Terror. He didn't know anything about her except the lore, but slowly he started falling for whatever the lore told him.

She's not real, he told himself as he drew pictures and tried to make up little stories about her and how she had made the tsunami that saved his life. She's an imaginary mechanism that people have made to cope with the expanded natural disasters. He prayed at a little shrine for her.

Nobody would know of his secret obsession with her.

But one day a pirate came into his domain, bruised up by an intense battle.

"I didn't know pirates ever came back to the inland. I thought they mostly died out on sea." Kululu looked at the pirate - a Viper. The Viper growled.

"I got into a battle with the Lord of Terror of the sea. I'm not going back out there... I was the only one who survived out of my crew. I need you to patch me up," he told him.

Kululu's interest was piqued. "Fine. But that takes gold." The Viper paid him. "The Lord of Terror isn't real, you know. She's just some stupid made-up myth. I'm sure sailors say all sorts of dumb stuff like that."

"She is real! I saw her. Her ship sailed in on the fog, and her battle cry... It was a stupid idiom! Out of all the declarations of war she could have shouted... No. Just an idiom. So my crew attacked, and we were quickly slain," the Viper explained.

Kululu looked like he was in shock. Was she real? Or was this just a myth? Had the Viper hallucinated? He had never heard people encountering her, just people talking about others who had seen her. And he had never heard the idiom thing. Kululu patched him up.

"Did she have a million arms like a spider? Three eyes? What did she look like?" Kululu asked.

"Just a girl. Two arms, two legs." Well, that threw out a lot of Kululu's theories. "She looked like a Pekoponian... Had their build. But her clothing was out of this world... And she had a weapon she called her 'Lucifer Spear,' " said the Viper.

Kululu listened closely. But once the Viper was patched up, he was slightly more convinced that she was real.

But he wanted to see her, or at least talk to her.

There was hope in him, although he was still a bit pessimistic that she was real. He went to the beach one day. The wreckage of his town had finally been cleaned up. He didn't like walking along the beach, since the water scared him. Out of all the Keronians, he was the only one who'd never gotten the knack for swimming. He was weaker than them.

The water had never enchanted him like it had so many others. He knew he would drown from it. But she was out there.

He wrote a letter.

Dear Lord of Terror, if that is your name,

I don't know if you get many mortals giving you letters. Just stupid people who probably aren't worth your time, but I'm going to try anyway.

I suppose I wanted to thank you for all you've done. Although I dislike the water, tsunamis are pretty cool. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself.

I just wanted to tell you about me, and about what you've done for me. I'm a surgeon who ran a failing business. I was poor and dying from lack of food because I didn't have any money and no skills to steal. People called me a heartless quack, but I still didn't want to die. Then your tsunami came, and for the first time in months, it drew people to my business. I didn't die that day. But I knew it wasn't because of me. It was because of you and your tsunami.

I think it was a wonderful creation, a deadly beauty. My prayers had been answered when your natural disaster hit and I became enamored by it. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself again.

I just wanted to thank you. So thanks! It means a lot to me. You saved my life and stuff.

I'm sure you get this from a bunch of boring mortal guys, though.

Love - he crossed it out and wrote - Gratefully,

Kululu.

He looked at his letter. He doubted she'd ever read it or even existed, but he wanted to send it to her. He hoped she didn't think he was weird. He stuffed the letter in a bottle and threw it out to sea.

And then he left. It was stupid, what he had done, and he doubted she'd ever see it.

When he went out to the beach the next week, he found his bottle back on the shore. He picked it up. Must have come back from the waves. Pathetic. He opened it up, but to his surprise, his letter wasn't in there. Instead, it was a new letter with flowery parchment and neat handwriting.

Dear Kululu,

Thank you so much for your words! I was just out at sea and I saw a bottle in the water. You could say, coincidence? I picked it up and I was more than surprised when it was addressed to me. I held it closely and wondered if it could be fate.

I had no idea that anyone actually liked my tsunamis! (Doesn't mean I'm going to stop them, though! They're really fun! Do you have anything you find fun like that?)

It meant a lot to me, your letter. I've never gotten a letter, much less one that thanks me. Truth be told, I'm rather lonely out here. Not many people seem to like tsunamis and underwater volcanoes. They're all terrified of me.

Sometimes I get sad that I'm so lonely. But today, I'm not. Because you're out there and you're thankful and that means so much to me! It was really super sweet, so thank you!

Sincerely,

Angol Mois (I do enjoy the title Lord of Terror, but you can call me Mois. It's easier.)

Kululu's hands were shaking as he read the letter over and over again. She was real! And much more surprising, she had read his letter and loved it!

He covered his face and then read her words over and over again. All the lore, the mythology about this goddess, was real. And she had contacted him. And thought he was sweet.

He grinned, despite himself, and wrote another letter.

And that was how their correspondence started.

He worshiped her and thought she was amazing. For several months now, he had been talking to her over bottled messages. She sounded so sweet and humble, but he knew she was some amazing goddess. He felt so proud of every message he received and just took it straight to his ego whenever she said how much she cared about his messages. He had never seen her face, never heard her voice, but he was madly in love with her.

Ku. Not too bad; it's not too surreal for some mortal guy like me to fall in love with a goddess like her, he thought to himself. He was just so confused how sweet she was, although she did enjoy hearing about his little monster surgeries.

Mois. You're way higher than me. I wonder when you'll tire of me?

They talked about all sorts of things, less like the typical mortal guy who had fallen for a sea goddess and more like pen-pals and friends. She talked about her love of earthquakes, and he his love of experimenting on living beings. She was non-judgmental about it. He even wrote her down some fairy tales from his town, since she had expressed an interest in it.

On braver, more drunken days, he even sent her love poetry to express his deep worship of such a powerful sea goddess. And he told himself that that was the sole reason. Just that, not that he had totally fallen in love with her for being her. Every message he got learning more about her seemed to make him fall deeper in love. She's poisoned me with her goddess powers, he realized. But each time he sent love poems she seemed pretty happy about it and told him how much they had made her blush.

He decided to finally tell her about his feelings for her, she already knew about them enough. He had implied them and flirted with her a ton. But he wanted to be done with this pathetic mortal display, plead like was classic with a goddess to meet him, and get terribly rejected.

That way he could worship her in peace and knew where they stood.

Dearest Mois,

I know it's very improper of me to ask, but I want to see you. For real. I've heard tales about people like me who fall in love with amazing people like you being driven mad, jumping into the ocean for example to see you, and probably dying. I don't really feel like dying, though. Sorry.

I just want to see you. I know my love for you is deeply one-sided. But it's here and it's real. I love you more than anything, and I want to see your face just once. I try to imagine it - is it yellow like mine? What color are your eyes? Your hair? I don't know.

It's okay if you don't want to meet. I will understand, and I'll probably devote my life to some shrine of you. Crud, I really am the grossly typical mortal guy who's fallen in love, aren't I? Ku, ku, ku. That's kind of funny.

Anyway, I just wanted to express my interest to meet you. Just once.

Love,

Kululu.

He sent his letter and waited for a polite rejection.

Instead a tsunami hit his town again. Well, that's not the polite rejection I was looking for, Kululu thought. But the tsunami was odd.

It hit every house except for his, making a gap and moving around his house. Like he was special.

Of course, after the tsunami, many victims came in to get fixed up, but the weirdest of the victims was definitely the girl who walked in with not a scratch on her.

"Um... I may have gotten the wrong address. It was hard to ask for directions because a lot of people were dead... but does Kululu live here?" she asked. She had silver hair like moonlight and the most beautiful golden eyes. Her skin was fair and she was dressed in shiny purple clothing decked out in different layers that were of no style he had ever seen.

She looked like a goddess. She was that beautiful.

"Yes. Ku, ku, ku. But you don't look too injured, miss. What is it you need?" heu asked.

"Are you the one who sent me all those bottles?" she asked. Kululu looked at her in shock. She was Mois? The Lord of Terror? She had done what he had asked and come to him?

She was so much cuter than he had ever imagined. For a full minute he stared at her. Then he fainted.

When he woke up, she was staring at him. "Wh-what are you doing here, Mois?" he asked. He hoped he was pronouncing it right.

"You asked to see me," she told him, simply, handing him her letter. "So I came."

He unfolded the letter she had handed him. Why didn't she just write to him whatever she needed to say?

I love you too, Kululu, read the letter in big letters. And he was greeted by a light kiss on the cheek.

He could believe in goddesses, the surreality of her powers, and her existence. But what he couldn't believe was how pure, innocent, and cute she was.

It wasn't even meant for the world of gods. He just rubbed his cheek, wondering how he had met her and landed her to be with him. And how someone could be that incredibly sparkly.

They lived in sin for a good long while. She kind of moved in with him as his lover, completely happy to just fall into the role of his girlfriend, spending time with him and learning more about the inland world as he explained it to her. She was always incredibly affectionate, so affectionate he knew he was going to die, but still he was insecure.

He always believed he was just a passing mortal fling to her, that this was temporary and she'd leave eventually. She was too good for him.

"Don't be like that, Kululu," she'd try to reassure him, "I love you lots and lots. And I'm not too good for you. I'm not even a goddess, my people just work with the Gods. It's a big difference. I'm not immortal."

But he didn't believe her. She had to be a goddess. She had to be.

Their relationship was a little bumpy because of Kululu's utter refusal to stop worshipping her and putting her on this high pedestal. He would get her tons of gifts and shower her in things like a princess, but usually he didn't initiate kisses or acts between them. He didn't touch her like if did, he'd be burned. He told her how amazing she was, but didn't kiss.

Not only that, but whenever she kissed him lightly or looked at him, he'd just fall on the ground and die.

"Why won't you court me like couples normally do, Kululu?" Mois asked. "Why won't you ever initiate kisses with me?"

"If I touched you it would taint you. You're too pure for my hands," he told her simply

"Kululu we've had sex."

"Um."

She rolled her eyes. Why was Kululu so over-dramatic about little things? He was totally fine with bigger things.

"Well, uhh... In stories, it's completely fine for mortals and goddesses to do it because it's just a passing fling sort of thing and - " he trailed off.

Another eye roll from Mois. Maybe she should subtly misplace all those Greek myths he was reading. "I'm not a goddess. I'm just a normal person. And I want you to treat me like an equal."

Kululu looked concerned. "Am I not treating you well enough?"

"No! You're treating me too well! You aren't caring about your own concerns because you've put yourself lower than me. I want to be equal with you, in a happy relationship that's not unbalanced." She snuggled up to him. "I care about you just as much as you care about me."

Kululu doubted that. She didn't die when he looked at her. "I'm not worshipping you because you're a goddess, Mois. I've learned that you're not. Although you really should be. Is there a test or something you can take to get the goddess title?"

Mois shook her head.

"Anyway, I worship you and always have because you're you. You're the purest, most amazing, cutest thing in the world. And I treasure you." He let her nuzzle up against him.

"But I want you to treasure you, too. I want you to not be so insecure in our relationship, like I'll leave you or something. I love you so much, I want to be with you forever," she reminded him.

Kululu frowned. He wasn't really that insecure about their relationship, was he? But he slowly started realizing that he was, and there was a problem. He did think that she'd leave him at any time.

She had to leave a lot for work, anyway, sometimes for weeks at a time. And since it was out on the sea, Kululu couldn't come with her. It was the only thing he wouldn't do for her, go out on the water. Although she had asked if he wanted to come with to see her start a tsunami, he was just too frightened.

He'd never get rid of his fear of water, and because of that, sometimes he got worried Mois would never come back from the sea.

Mois was the most perfect person that Kululu could have asked for. On land she lived as his surgeon assistant and lover, and on the waters she lived as the Lord of Terror.

But one day, she did get into a fight with him. It was the last day he ever saw her. He had never once considered that she would be insecure with their relationship or had any worries or faults of her own. But her concerns finally bubbled out of her mouth as she looked at him worriedly and the shrine he had made to her.

"Do you really love me, Kululu?" she almost shouted in despair.

"Of course I do. Why would you think I didn't?" He had never heard that question before. How could Mois even question his devotion to her? He worshiped so very much, he loved every little bit of her, even her naive, confused faults.

"It's just... sometimes it seems like you don't, " she confessed.

"I can fix that. Do you want me to make you something? A gift to prove it?" Kululu was hurt that she even questioned his love. But he knew objects fixed everything. They were better than words, because they were eternal.

"I don't want a gift!" she shouted. "I want the truth. And I've finally realized why you won't put yourself as equal to me, why we can't be a real couple. Why you're always talking about this as temporary."

"Because I worship you?" He tried to hold her hand to calm her down, but she was shaking too hard.

"Yes," she spoke. "You're not in love with me. You're in love with a fantasy version of me," she accused. "You were probably chasing a fantasy because you were lonely. You probably have been, ever since that first letter. I mean, you told me yourself, right? You put 'love' on the letter and crossed it out, but that's not possible. You didn't know me. You couldn't be in love with me. You were in love with what I stood for. Tsunamis," she told him quietly.

Kululu's mouth opened a little. That was slightly true, but every letter he had read, every moment she had been with him, he had fallen more in love with her, learned more about her, until he finally saw the real her when they were living together. He was so shocked that she was insecure about this, but more shocked that it was slightly true.

She waited for reassurance that it wasn't true.

"Mois, I do love you!" he insisted. "More than anything. Why would I not? You're perfect. Don't be insecure about this, please..." He begged.

"But I don't want to be perfect," she told him quietly, "I want to be real. I want to be someone that you see all of, even my faults. I want you to love even those, so I know you'll be with me forever and won't just fall out of love. But how can you love them when you don't even see them?"

Kululu was quiet. "Well, what about you!" He didn't know how to respond to her accusation "You don't love all of me, I bet." He had tons of faults. He put curry in the milk carton and drank out of it.

"I do. I love all of you, even your faults. And I do see them, but I love them anyway. I never saw you as any less than me; I always saw you as an equal. I never saw me living with you as a temporary arrangement. I saw it as real, because I loved you so much. The only possible reason it won't last would be because you think it's not going to last." She was on the verge of tears. "I wonder if, after you feel like I've had my fill of you and could go on to other things, you would have moved on and found someone you could find equal. And fallen in real love with them."

She was crying now. Kululu tried to brush off her tears, but what else could he say besides a thousand "I love you"s? She was halfway right, but he knew he would never stop loving her. And he was sure that he didn't love a fantasy of her, but he had previously, so it was hard to distinguish. After all, he was always so sure she'd leave him and he'd have to go back to just fantasizing about her.

"Mois, I... I wouldn't find someone else," was all that he could choke out. She shook her head and got up.

"I need to go," she told him.

"What? You're leaving?" She couldn't leave him. He didn't want them to end like this. But at the same time, his insecurity knew she would, and she'd be gone soon from his life unless he did something to win her over.

But he couldn't think of anything. He just stood there.

"I'll be home soon," she told him. "I'm not leaving for good. Although I'm sure that's what you're thinking." Her voice sounded a little irritated. "And... you didn't even try to stop me... No, I'm leaving for work. To cause some tsunamis. You probably don't want to come."

"That's one thing I can't do for you, Mois. Going out to sea."

"I know." She turned away, without giving Kululu her usual kiss good-bye.

"I love you. Come home soon," he told her.

"But to you... is this really my home? Or do you expect me to leave someday?" she asked him over her shoulder. "And can you say you really love me? If you can accept that I'd be gone and our love together is temporary and it wouldn't leave a hole in your heart, I don't think you could."

And Kululu couldn't. Because in the back of his head, he had prepared himself for her leaving ever since she had walked into his life. So the hole in his heart that her being gone would cause would be easily repaired, he always assumed. He'd always love her, but her being gone would be predictable.

And she walked out.

He never saw her again.

"Mois... she never returned after our fight," Kululu finished.

"So... she still might be out there? Ruling her ship?" Fuyuki asked. Kululu had been pretty pathetic in that story, but it had also been kind of sad, the ending. Juggling relationship stuff was hard.

Saburo just had a sad look on his face. "If she had come back, what do you think would happen?"

"I'd have hugged her and kissed her and told her I never wanted her to leave. But I never took the opportunity to do that. And... I only realized I wanted to do that after I assumed she left me and wasn't coming back. But... I was a real idiot. She was the one having real human emotions, being insecure and I did nothing. I loved her, I really did, and it was real love the sort of stuff she wanted, but after she was gone I did half of what she predicted. I found you, Saburo, and I suppose our friendship is much more equal than our relationship was." He sighed. "But that hole in my heart... it never repaired like I thought it would."

"How do you know she's not coming back?" Fuyuki asked.

"Because I learned she didn't leave me. She died at sea," he said. "It was the first time I met Saburo..."

Angol Mois hadn't come back. And for some reason, there was a new surge in pirates.

"Yo!" Saburo walked into Kululu's surgeon laboratory.

Kululu was down in the dumps. Mois hadn't returned, and a part of him new she was gone.

"I heard you're the best surgeon in these parts..." Saburo told him.

"What about it?" Kululu was grumpy. "You don't look injured. What do you need?"

"I'm a pirate. The best in the sea," Saburo bragged. "And I need a surgeon on my ship. I was wondering if you'd be interested in joining my crew. I've heard great things about you," he smiled.

Kululu slapped his hand away that was reaching to shake his. "No thank you. I'm no fan of water."

"Can't swim?" Saburo asked. "Or are you just afraid?"

Kululu frowned. It was both. "I'll never be a pirate." He paused, "Wait, what's a pirate like you doing fine anyway? I thought most pirates came back pretty injured from their trips on sea or ready to quit because of the lord of terror."

Saburo beamed. "So you've heard about her?" He picked his teeth with a toothpick. "Yeah, she was a terrifying one. But haven't you heard the latest news?"

"What news?"

"She died at sea. Doesn't roam the waters anymore," Saburo answered simply.

Kululu gripped the edge of his table to steady himself. Mois... was dead? She hadn't left him, she had just died?

No... no, that can't be, he thought to himself. Mois couldn't be dead. She was too pure, too innocent, too amazing. She couldn't have died. He sweated in grief and terror. He wanted to scream and cry. Instead, he was just silent.

"How?" he asked.

Saburo shrugged. "I don't know."

Kululu looked at Saburo for a good long time, wondering if he was lying. "Sh-she can't be."

"Why not? She was rumored to be pretty strong, but I guess she was mortal just like the rest of us."

"NO!" Kululu couldn't believe it. His Mois, she couldn't be dead. He wanted to see her smiling face again. I didn't even tell her how wrong she was. How much I really did love her. I didn't even kiss her good-bye. "She said she'd come back home. We were going to talk - " He started to cry.

Saburo looked at him wide eyed. "Y-you knew her? B-but that can't be... I thought she was evil..."

"She was not! She was a sweet girl! She didn't deserve to die! I loved her more than anything, and I didn't show it to her." He felt so bad. "Leave, I'm closed for the day."

Saburo nodded. "I won't press you on the job anymore. If it means anything to you, uhhh... I'm sorry," he told him before leaving.

And Kululu cried for many hours. But then he researched.

"You're going to get into this, Kululu?" Saburo asked.

"I'm sure the kid wants to hear more mythology." He shrugged. "You want to hear how I actually joined the pirates?"

"Shouldn't you leave it off on a cliffhanger or something - "

"Nah, I'm going to tell you everything!"

Saburo was just about to leave port when Kululu hurriedly ran up to him.

"I'll join your crew," he told him.

"I thought you hated water," Saburo recalled.

"I do. But... being on a ship is something I never did for her. Being on sea," he told him. "I'll join your crew and be your ship surgeon on one condition. I need you to take me someplace."

"Where?" Saburo asked, a bit interested. This guy was haggling.

Kululu held up a book filled with mythology. "If she died on the sea, her soul was brought to the Land of the Dead. There lies a god that handles souls who died at sea and rules over them. I've tried to research how to get there and it's clear that the only way to reach it is via boat. Therefore, if I want to bring her back, I have to use a boat."

"You sure know a lot about death," Saburo commented.

"I play with it everyday," Kululu nodded. "So, are you a pirate looking for adventure?"

Saburo thought for a moment. Then he nodded. "I'll help you bring her back." He hadn't known that there was a reason she shouldn't die. That someone would miss her. "Welcome aboard."

"We went on a huge journey across the sea to reach the Land of the Dead, where we'd find the god who handled souls lost at sea. We bonded and became the friends we were today. Ku, ku, ku. Best part of the story." Kululu bro-fisted Saburo.

"Agreed," Saburo smiled. "It took months to get there. But we did."

"I'll go in alone. You're a pretty cool guy, so if something goes wrong, I don't want to lose you," Kululu told him, looking into a deep cavern with a staircase into the underworld.

Saburo nodded. They were at the end of the world. "Good luck."

And Kululu went down the staircase.

Finally, he reached the god who had been appointed to watch those who died at sea. He couldn't see his face or his figure, he just stood in a brown cloak.

"Who are you, mortal? And what are you doing here?" The god sounded bored.

"I'm here to get back Mois. Give her to me and I'll leave," said Kululu.

"Nah," said the god. He released all sorts of creatures to frighten Kululu. But Kululu didn't budge.

He wasn't frightened of those dumb things or anything this God had in store for him. "Ku, ku, ku." He just laughed.

"LEAVE! LEAVE! LEAVE!" The god was getting annoyed. It had been days, and whatever powers he was using to get Kululu to leave hadn't worked. Kululu didn't talk, he just had that creepy laugh that sent shudders down his spine. "Fine! What is it you want again?"

"Mois, alive. Give me Angol Mois," said Kululu.

The god frowned. "Fine. But only if you stop laughing and give me something in return."

"What is it you want?" Kululu asked. He would give anything to see Mois again. He just hoped he wasn't asked to kill Saburo.

"Something simple. Your eye. Carve it out and you have a deal," said the god.

Kululu sighed. He liked being able to see, and that sounded like it would hurt, but it was worth it. "Do you have a knife?"

The God tossed him a spoon. Kululu winced but took off his glasses and poked at his eye, prying around it and trying not to scream.

Eventually it popped out. Blood poured out of the socket and Kululu pressed on it, trying not to black out. He walked over and handed his eye to the god.

"Now, give me her," he said.

"All right. I'll let her follow you back to the world of the living," the god explained, "But you can't look at her. If you reach the top, you win. You get her. She'll be alive. But if you look behind you even once, you'll lose. The gate to the underworld will close behind you. So you've got to trust me."

Kululu bit his lip. He had never been good with trust. He didn't even trust Mois to come back to him. But he nodded and started walking up the stairs.

He saw the light at the top and wondered if Mois was following him. She probably hates me after the fight we had, he thought to himself. Would she be following him? He knew he couldn't be impulsive and look behind him, but what if she wasn't there when he was back up and it closed behind him? If he looked behind himself and ran, she'd be able to follow, and he'd have her.

He tried to tell himself not to look, but even Kululu had impulses that all his genius couldn't beat. He glanced behind him at the very top and saw her.

She gave him a kind smile, but then screamed as she fell down the stairs, and her body was sucked into the crystal ball of the god. He laughed and Kululu was booted out of the underworld.

"I... I lost... She's gone forever now." Kululu's hands shook. After all that... It had been all for nothing. He curled up and wept.

"I'm sorry. I really am," Saburo told him and hugged him.

It was over.

"And that's how Mois and I met, and how we ended. Impulsiveness... Ku, instinct. It's all the greatest sin." Kululu looked down, shaking. Saburo tried to steady him.

Fuyuki just felt sorry for Kululu. So not only had he lost his eye over that, he had lost Mois, as well.

"But... I guess I can finally make peace with it knowing that my other self is happy with her and making the right choices. He's treating her right, isnt' he? She's happy?"

Fuyuki knew Kululu was probably pranking her or something. "Yeah. Totally happy," he lied.

Meanwhile in Fuyuki's original world, Angol Mois sneezed.

"Do you feel weird, Kululu? Like somebody's talking about you?" she had to ask.

"Actually, yes," Kululu nodded, pausing from his work. It probably wasn't important. But he was suspicious about who would talk about him and Mois. Hopefully they weren't talking about his big fear and weakness.

"Kululu! Are you working on where Fuyuki is and how to get him back?" Keroro asked.

"Yeah! Don't worry, I'm getting closer to whatever dimension he's in." Kululu frowned. Saburo's power over that reality pen was going too far. Saburo was the one who had told them about Fuyuki falling in. And now Fuyuki had been missing for a week.

Saburo probably felt awful, though. Kululu felt a bit bad for the guy.

"Mois, inspect the C section dimensions!" Kululu ordered.

"You got it, Kululu!" she smiled.

Kululu was glad he had a partner like her. And they worked, trying to be quick.

They'll probably be one of the few characters to get a backstory flashback.

Please review.