A Collision of Heaven and Earth

Episode 10: The Loud Sounding Horn

Because of the riots, throngs of Messengers were already out and about trying to threaten the masses into subjugation. Those who parachuted to the ground, as well as the scouts, were already engaged in gunfights and close combat with some of them. Civilians were screaming and shouting at one another. Some of the paranormal enthusiasts and Momoka fans were in the airport, tossing around weak homemade bombs, settings things on fire, setting off fireworks, and generally throwing everything into a state of chaos.

That's what we walked into, with smiles on our faces. The platoon let us go first, understanding our ploy – the Five Kids entered the airport together, me in the center, with Koyuki and Momoka flanking my sides and Saburo and Fuyuki lagging on the back edges. We looked at one another and pulled sleeves back from our fake wristwatches, pressing our thumbs down on the buttons on them.

The transformation dazzled everyone around us, blinding the airport with a white light for a moment. When the light cleared, all five of us were in Keronian-made powersuits.

"Let's go," I commanded, and we were off.

Upon sighting their idols, the rioters cheered, throwing the Messengers off their game. I landed in front of one right as he turned to look at me, and he blocked a few of my punches before I got a grip on him, tossing him over my head. He fell to the ground with a satisfying crack, but I was surrounded with a handful more of them.

Koyuki, who'd recovered from her bullet wound quickly due to Kululu's weird science voodoo, turned on her boosters and tore through the circle of Messengers. She took them down without moving her feet, skating across the tile as if it were ice. I caught up to her as she powered down and we pressed our backs together, taking down Messengers around us in a synchronized kind of circle dance.

The others, including the platoon, had joined the fray at this point, and I could see bright yellow columns of Tamama's rage breath shattering windows and melding through walls like a laser. Small, hard-to-catch Keronians wound around us, waving guns and soaring through the air with the help of their energy wings.

At some point I passed Mois. She'd changed out of her Angol dress and into some gear a bit more suitable for a fight, her long silver hair tied back in a side braid. As I ran by, she smiled at me and laughed, and we clasped hands briefly before both of us leaped back into the chaos of battle.

It seemed the element of surprise had given us the advantage, as the Messengers began to fall back. Then, suddenly, the skylight above us shattered. A dark figure propelled downward into the floor, sending up a shockwave blast that knocked us off our feet. Some of the structure had been damaged. Bits of the roof collapsed, throwing up dust and rubble.

I coughed and sucked in breath, searching for the wind that'd been knocked out of me when I fell. Activating my foot boosters to get me standing again, I looked toward the epicenter of the explosion. The whole building was hazy with floating dirt particles, but I could make out a silhouette moving out of the fog. The figure held something long, thin, and tall in its hand, and it twirled it, blasting the haze away in a whirlwind.

I heard Mois's voice cry out, "Janja!"

In the crater left by the blast stood a tall, statuesque young woman. She had short black hair and fair skin, but her half-lidded eyes were a chillingly lightless shade of black. The woman wore a baggy sweatshirt over a pleated skirt and thigh-high socks – not exactly the best garb for battle, but she didn't seem to mind. Perhaps the most terrifying thing about the woman was the tall staff she held in her hand; the staff's body was made up of what looked like wrought-iron, with a crescent moon carved from some opalescent material attached to the top of it.

"Cram it, Heretic," she snapped back at Mois. "You no longer have any right to address Serpa royalty by name."

Mois ignored the insult, heaving herself up onto her knees. "Why are you doing this?"

Instead of responding, Janja held her staff into the air and brought it down onto the ground, screaming, "Armageddon one-one-millionth!"

A few of the Keronians, soldiers, and civilians on the ground around her went flying through the air, their backs slamming into the wall with a sickening crunch. The airport trembled down to its foundation. Chunks crashed down from the ceiling. I saw Keroro trying to sit up, but he was looking at the collapsing ceiling and Janja in terror.

I suddenly realized she was the one who had been there at the UN that day – she'd brought the roof down on the United Nations and ruined their peace negotiations. Saburo said there hadn't been an explosion, but I didn't realize it could've been an Angol...

Mois had stood, the only one able to withstand Janja's shockwaves. "Listen to me! If you destroy this planet, you will still be upsetting the Order! What do you hope to gain from this?"

"We are not destroying this planet," Janja retorted. "We're here for other reasons, and all of those reasons stem from your inability to fulfill your duty."

Ignoring Mois's horrified expression, Janja scanned the open area, looking for specific targets. Her eyes rested on Keroro. She squinted, tilting her head in confusion.

"Ah," she said, smugly, "That's why we couldn't find you."

Janja advanced on Keroro. He tried to scramble to his feet, but his arm had been re-injured in the fight and it collapsed under his weight. Mois screamed and tried to rush her. Janja merely smacked the girl away from her with her staff. When she turned back to Keroro, a bruised and bloody-faced Tamama stood in her path.

"I won't fucking let you touch him," Tamama snarled in his low, rasping angered voice.

He opened his mouth to blast her, but Janja jabbed the butt of her staff into his abdomen and kicked him out of the way. I could tell just from looking at her that Janja was older and more experienced than Mois. The only way to overtake her would be to surprise her.

I stepped forward, preparing my flight boosters. From this angle I had a direct view of her entire back. Even if I couldn't kill her, I needed to stop her somehow.

Readying my missile cannons, I launched myself at her right as she lifted her staff above Keroro. I aimed, locked on, and fired. The blast of the missiles couldn't kill an Angol, but Janja was still thrown forward into the wall, her staff clattering to the floor. The explosion caused part of the wall to collapse on top of her. She howled with fury, kicking the debris off her, but the momentary halt of her attack was enough to throw everyone back into action. We were up and running.

Some of the ninja, identifiable by their traditional ninja garb, were corralling everyone in a certain direction – the direction, I assumed, of someplace we could hide and regroup. The more experienced fighters stayed on the outskirts of the crowd as we withdrew, picking off any Messengers trailing behind us. The ninja lead us into what looked like a storage area, but the wall pushed aside into a wide secret passage. I stayed at the back to make sure everyone got in without any enemies coming along for the ride and gave the okay for the wall to be closed. The ninja sealed the wall; I couldn't even, just from looking at it, figure out where the door began or ended.

I turned to one of the ninja, "Is there somewhere we can treat the injured?"

"Follow me," he said, motioning for us to come along.

The tunnel was dark and damp, like an abandoned subway tunnel, though there were no tracks to suggest a train – just concrete walls and gravel-covered walkway. Some of us were wounded. I picked up an exhausted Keronian with a bad limp and carried her in my arms. After awhile, the tunnel opened up into a broader area.

One of the ninja nodded. "This should be safe, for now."

We happily collapsed onto the floor. Some of the civilians had gotten in with us, and they flocked around Fuyuki and Momoka in wonder until we gave them tasks to do. Amazingly, they were more than happy to pass out some medical supplies; some ninja had broken away from the main group and helped Momoka's soldiers to unload the helicopter and squirrel away gear, weapons, and first aid stuff while we were fighting. Some of the Keronians had been medics so they tended to the wounded.

I noticed a bit of a commotion out of the corner of my eye and turned to see Angol Mois clutching Keroro so tightly he might suffocate. She pulled away from him, touching his face with tears running down her own. Tamama stood off to the side, nursing his bruised stomach and ignoring both of them.

A few Keronians suddenly came running up to them, shouting and demanding Kululu. Keroro, still a bit dazed, did his best to calm their shouting, but they kept yelling, "We need Kululu! He's the only one who can help!" Finally, after a bit of prodding and questioning, I heard one of them exclaim, "It's the corporal!"

You know how people say their legs turned to jelly? That's what it felt like. A shot of epinephrin pierced the bottom of my stomach and seemed to travel down into my thighs and calves, sapping them of their strength. I wobbled, and my legs had that fuzzy, fallen-asleep feeling in them. The dizziness was so strong I felt like my body was spinning in a zero-gravity vacuum.

I saw Keroro call out for and wave over Kululu, and both of them glanced at me knowingly. Feeling as if I was moving through a dream, I joined them, and we ran after the frantic Keronians. We found Giroro propped against a wall. His shirt was torn open across his chest but there was so much blood you could hardly tell where the wound was.

"He got caught in the glass from the skylight," one of the Keronians explained. "A big piece came down and slashed him open."

Kululu went to work immediately, pulling out a rag to sop up the floor. Giroro winced and gritted his teeth. I sucked in a deep breath, tears gathering in the corners of my eyes, and knelt down beside him; when he saw me, Giroro said nothing, but he moved his hand closer to me. I grasped it tightly, vision blurring, and he wove his fingers between mine.

I didn't dare look over at what Kululu was doing. I didn't want to see the damage. I didn't want to know if the procedure was even working. Every once in awhile Giroro would lower his face and squeeze my hand, and I would cover my face with the other so he couldn't see how upset I was. No one said anything about it. I think they all understood what Giroro and I were still figuring out.

"Thankfully, there doesn't seem to be any glass fragments or internal bleeding," Kululu said at last. "The blood loss is the only thing I worry about."

"I'll be fine," Giroro grumbled, the first thing he'd said throughout the whole ordeal.

"Still, I don't want you taking a nap any time soon. Natsumi, would you mind keeping an eye on him?"

Startled, I jerked my head up to look over at Kululu. I blushed. "Me? I -"

"Don't worry about helping out with everybody else," Keroro said. "You've done enough today. Let me and Momoka handle everything."

Helpless to do much else but nod, I seated myself next to him and hugged my knees to my chest. They left us alone. Kululu glanced back at us as they walked away, raising his eyebrows suggestively. I scowled at him. The din of people talking around us seemed faraway, like background noise.

"Thank you," Giroro said.

"For what?"

"Being there. Through that whole procedure. I really thought I could've died for a second there."

"Dummy," I scoffed. "I told you not to, didn't I?"

We were still holding hands. I pretended not to fixate on it. A few Keronians sitting near us watched us out of the corners of their eyes, but I glared at them until they turned away. Giroro rubbed his thumb over my hand, sending a shock of electricity through my arm, and I jerked away from him without thinking.

"I'm sorry," I said, holding my hands against my chest in an attempt to quiet the pounding of my heart. "It's nothing you've done. I'm just really confused and really scared."

"Scared of me?" He asked.

I thought for a moment. "No, it's not that. I think, maybe, because of Saburo, I'm afraid this would end badly. Or, I don't even know where we would begin."

Giroro stayed quiet. I summoned the courage to look at him. My eyes traced the fine lines of his face, the angles of his features. For a moment, I wondered what I would've done if I'd have lost him, if I'd felt the life slip out of his fingers as his hand relaxed in mine. The panic in me over that whole ordeal was still fresh and new.

"Tamama told me you'd always felt this way," I said quietly.

Scrunching up his nose, Giroro muttered, "I'm gonna kill him."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you were a teenage girl with a crush on someone else and I was the alien frog living in your backyard," he replied.

I shrugged, laughing a little. "Seems logical."

"Did Koyuki tell you what Dororo planned on doing after this?"

"What?" The change of topic startled me a little. "Do you mean – well, he's planning on staying."

"I'll stay."

The abruptness of his words caught me off guard. I inhaled sharply. "What?"

"If you want me to," Giroro added, softly, "I'll stay."

I stared at him in awe, completely at a loss for words. My mind was blank. I couldn't process what he was saying to me.

"That's how much you mean to me," he said, avoiding my eyes. "But if you don't feel the same way, I won't. It's up to you."

A lump formed in my throat again. I tried to swallow it, but it sat behind my mouth like a stone. "I don't know, Giroro." My voice wavered. I blinked back tears. "I need a little time, okay?"

I thought he might get mad again, but Giroro just grabbed me and pulled me into his lap. Kululu had stitched up and bandaged his wound, so I curled up against him, leaning my head against his shoulder and letting my hands rest against his chest. I could feel Giroro's hand against the small of my back; my shirt had ridden up on my hips somewhat and his fingers were running along the inch of exposed skin below the hem of my shirt. His touch against my lower back sent me reeling through space again.

I didn't know what to do anymore. I didn't know what we even were or what label to put on our relationship. I was blown away by the sheer magnitude of how much he adored me, how much he was willing to throw away for me. Something flitted through me, then – the sudden desire to reciprocate in some way. I wanted to give him as much as he was giving me. I just didn't know where to begin.

Author's Note: I was worried chapter 9 would be a bit boring by itself, so I decided to upload 9 + 10 at the same time. Thank you all for reading, hope you enjoy!