Concept

by Rainbowkittyblossomwings

The Platoon might be in the fight of their lives as dark secrets about their planet's history is uncovered. With Haru back in the Hinatas lives, the strange occult loving pekoponian brings back secrets connected to Keron, revealing a race of aliens that they used to prey upon. Questions start being asked like was the Keroro Platoon really sent to invade Pekopon?

11. Cycle of Hatred

Some warnings for body horror stuff involving bugs.

Also in my original summary of this story Fuyuki died in this chapter. Watch as I desperately try to unwrite what was originally going to happen. And also you'll slowly see in the next chapters how Fuyuki just seems to magically 'disappear' because he wasn't supposed to be around any longer. What a story Mark.

Thank you for all your reviews. It's really been helping motivate me.

This chapter is the end of this specific arc. The next chapter will start up the next arc.

What other fun author comments can I say? I apologize greatly for Tamama and Dororo in this story they both have a purpose to serve.

Old summary because I'm trying to find a good replacement summary that explains the story a little better: An idea. A belief, never ending. That's what a concept is. But sometimes the concept wants to be buried in the ground. If you've beaten at a concept longer than it was meant to exist, are you the villain? Or were you just made like this to try to win glory for your people? The Platoon might be in the fight of their lives as dark secrets about their planet's history is uncovered.

---

Although it hadn't yet been four months, Keroro decided that perhaps the best course of action was to regroup and be all together.

"You and I have already grouped up." Keroro pointed out to Tamama, "And I think we're stronger together than we were alone. So maybe splitting up wasn't the best decision."

Tamama nodded. "You're darn right that we're stronger together." Awkwardly he wondered if that meant he'd have to see Angol Mois again. He wasn't exactly sure why she wasn't with Keroro, in a way he had lucked out, but he didn't really want to see her.

So Keroro sent the signal out to all members of the Keroro Platoon. "Calling all Keroro Platoon members, regroup at the Hinata House." The order was received.

It didn't take long for them to meet back at the Hinata House. A day at most. Keroro was actually surprised how fast his platoon members were.

With them were the people he expected, Natsumi, Koyuki, Saburo, and Angol Mois.

"What's the big idea calling us back early?" Giroro yelled. "We're only about three months into our mission. We could have done better!" Giroro, Keroro noticed was one of the few who looked like he had actually captured some flyians.

He had a large cage that he was holding them in. It wasn't a complete amount, but it was something.

Kululu as well had a bunch. Not the entire population by far, but it gave Keroro hope.

Giroro and Kululu would be the two who had actually caught some of them. He glanced over at Dororo, who was looking disappointed. Dororo still didn't have any.

"I just thought we might do better together. Tamama and I had already joined up because going it alone did really no good. I thought that it would be best if the Keroro platoon acted as a four man-" He glanced at Dororo, "I mean five man troop!" He quickly tried to smooth things over.

Dororo glared.

A lot of the people in front of him in fact looked a little annoyed. Except Saburo. He looked relieved.

"I just have one thing to say, Keroro." Saburo took his hand and shook it, briskly. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" He looked to be on the verge of tears. "I was getting so tired of hanging around with them all the time. God, it was real awful."

Keroro looked at Saburo with sympathy. I guess even though Kululu's his best friend, even he gets tired of him. Keroro nodded. "Don't worry. You're among friends now."

"I….I wasn't really that bad…." Kululu shrugged thinking Saburo was acting over dramatic.

"What did we do?" Angol Mois asked worriedly. It almost looked like they had broken Saburo.

"You two know what you did." Saburo gave an almost teasing hiss, looking a bit like he was being over dramatic on purpose.

And nobody knew what he was talking about.

Tamama glared at Angol Mois though. He put his arms around Keroro's. "Well me and Mr. Sergeant had a great time working together. We were super lovey-dovey." He tried to rub in her face.

Keroro gave Tamama a weird look, like that wasn't true.

Angol Mois ignored Tamama. She usually didn't get dragged down by his petty drama.

Koyuki jumped up and down, happy to see her friends. She mostly ignored Momoka and Angol Mois, but she ran over to Natsumi and flung her arms around her in a tight hug. "NATSUMI! I missed you so much! It's great to see you! How have you been? What have you been up to? Did you kill anyone? I killed a man, Natsumi-" Koyuki just chattered on and on.

Natsumi kind of pushed her away so she could breathe. Koyuki was getting intense. "Yeah, I'm happy to see you too." She agreed with her friend, only hearing about half her words.

Everybody just went up to one another, happy to be in their friend's presence for a few minutes.

Keroro cleared his throat after about 2 minutes of people trying to reconnect with each other. It wasn't that he minded, but he felt a little left out. The only one who had gone up to him and said that they missed him was Angol Mois.

Giroro, Dororo and Kululu were just standing at one edge of the room glaring at him. They still seemed slightly mad about the whole 'their lives were a lie thing' They blame it on me. Keroro realized.

He didn't want to be excluded from the get togethers. He'd rather do work and get to business than that. But everybody ignored his subtle throat clearing.

"Maybe...Maybe we should go over to him..." Dororo finally suggested, and sighed, giving in.

"What? Why! He's our irresponsible platoon leader. We would have never found out about any of this if we had invaded the planet." Giroro pointed out. Sure Keron hadn't thought they would or wanted them to, but they'd have to acknowledge them if they had done that. "But because of him we couldn't invade." Giroro hissed.

"Yeah." Kululu agreed. He didn't seem to be listening fully, he was just glaring. "Okay, well to be completely honest, I just don't like him in general. You're not going to see me getting all friendly with our old captain. Ku, ku, ku." He leaned against the wall. "Apparently both of my teammates have that job down pretty well. No need for me to flatter him." Kululu's voice was laced with malice as he pointed over at Saburo and Angol Mois. Saburo was fake crying and Angol Mois was smiling and talking to Keroro.

Dororo didn't comment on Saburo. He didn't know what was up with him, but he thought it was harmless. "I just mean..." He felt timid as he talked, but eventually he found his voice. "Keroro's not fully responsible for what happened to us."

"What? What do you mean, Dororo?" Giroro asked. "You know better than any of us that Keroro is responsible. Why else would his entire friend group be failures?"

Dororo shook his head. "I read my file. It wasn't his fault. And I bet in your file's it wasn't his fault either. We each bare some responsibility for what happened. And using Keroro as a scapegoat is not the responsible thing to do."

"Yeah, it's a little too much like Keroro. Ku, ku, ku." Kululu used the opportunity to mock Keroro.

Dororo glared at him. He was trying to stand up for someone here.

"We should ease up. We all bare responsibility for this incident. We're all in the same circumstance. Let's be the better person and try...Try to forgive." Dororo suggested.

Giroro was frowning, but he finally gave a reluctant nod. "If...If you say so, Dororo. You always got the blunt of Keroro's mistakes. Even more so than me. If you can forgive, I can follow your lead."

They looked at Kululu. Kululu shrugged. They probably weren't getting much better.

They all approached Keroro. Keroro smiled and crossed his arms. "You're here! The platoon is reunited!" He tried to pose like a leader.

"Yeah? So?" Giroro asked. "And what did you want us to do?"

Keroro thought for a moment. "Well...Since we've been separated for so long I think we should try to get on the same page. Please give your reports on what happened on your journeys."

They all looked at each other. Giroro blushed deeply, not really wanting to go over anything that happened. M-mine and Natsumi's relationship is personal. They don't need to know!

Keroro sighed after a moment. "You don't know how to give a report, do you? All right. I'll start." He took a deep breathe, ready to go over the events that had happened to him.

"Fuyuki, Admiral Papa and I all went to Fuyuki's grandma's house to look for the flyians." Keroro started up his story.

"So...Wait...We all went to different parts of the world and you just went to Natsumi's grandmother's house?" Giroro asked. He was glaring at Keroro, like that was unfair.

"Haru said that the flyians had some of his memories and would go to places they found safe. That place felt safe to them." Keroro explained. "We looked all over the place but couldn't find them. Eventually though during some spring festival some magical light show lured me into the forest. I think it was a trap by the flyians."

"They...Can summon lights?" Tamama asked. This was news to him. "How is that useful?"

Keroro shrugged. He didn't know. "Anyway, I spooked them quite a bit but they eventually...Um beat me." Keroro neglected to mention him crying a lot. "Later I followed more lights and found them again though! So they weren't lost to me very long."

"You found them again but didn't bring any back with you?" Giroro asked.

Keroro shook his head. "They tried to kill me. They took over Fuyuki by swarming him and using him as a hostage, and then eventually did the same to Momoka when she showed up to save Fuyuki." Keroro explained. "They ordered me to kill myself in return for freeing them." He glanced at Tamama, "Luckily the private saved my life, I was eventually able to see more clearly thanks to him and I realized an important fact about the flyians. They're afraid of keronians! I chased them off and me and the private were looking for them ever since."

Tamama grinned. "See?" He glared at Angol Mois. "I helped Mr. Sergeant. I'm important. You didn't."

Nobody listened to him. Instead Kululu looked thoughtful. "Afraid of keronians? Ku. They didn't seem that afraid of me when I encountered them. In fact, I didn't actually do much against them. It was Mois who squashed the giant bug they sent after us."

Everybody looked at Kululu, waiting for the information he could give. Kululu shrugged. "Saburo, Mois and I went to some pekoponian rainforest. It was rather difficult to locate the flyians but it turned out they had sent some cryptids to stalk us. Some giant snake, and a giant spider person or something. I killed the snake and Mois squashed the spider and we were easily able to capture the flyians."

Angol Mois frowned. "Umm...Actually...I don't think the giant snake had anything to do with the flyians." She confessed.

"What?" Kululu took a step back. "But it was following us." He pointed out. "And it tried to capture and eat you."

Angol Mois shook her head. "I flew into it accidentally after I split up from your group. I thought it was a bunch of vines. It...Tried to constrict me so it could eat me, but it didn't have much luck. It was trying to squash me for about a week when you happened upon it. You could say, just one big coincidence? Fine all along. Almost feel bad for the snake." Angol Mois shrugged.

Kululu just looked shocked. "You...Were being constricted for a week? I…I thought we happened upon you pretty soon."

Angol Mois waved her hands desperate to reassure Kululu. "Don't worry! I slept through most of it."

That did not make him any happier.

"A giant snake has just as many problems getting rid of her as I do." Tamama narrated to himself. "I almost feel some kinship with it. It was just laying around when that woman flew into its life and ruined it too."

"Well, it no longer has a life!" Angol Mois smiled. "Cuz Kululu killed it. He rescued me." She swooned a little, complimenting him.

"I'd...Feel a little more like I did something if you had actually been in trouble instead of just napping, you know." Kululu sighed.

Keroro just tried not to snicker. "All right, Tamama. Your report."

Tamama nodded and saluted. "I went with Momocchi to a Nishizawa meeting since I knew the flies had some connection with the Nishizawas. She taught me boring economics." Tamama groaned. "We stole Giroro's pekoponian gun-"

"Giroro has a what?" Keroro looked confused. "Does it shoot out pekoponians or...what?"

"It turns you into a pekoponian." Tamama clarified.

"W-what?" Giroro turned pink. "You must be mistaken. Also you're not allowed to take my things."

"Ku, ku, ku. He's not mistaken." Kululu teased. "And I would say the same to you. That gun rightfully belonged in the trash. It was mine but you used it for the worst possible task. To flirt with a pekoponian chick." Giroro just blushed harder and harder.

Tamama glared. "Quiet! Quiet. Let me finish my story. Turns out the Nishizawa board members were martial artist and I entered a cool martial arts tournament."
"Where is this story going?" Keroro asked.

"I met a guy who had a bunch of flyians in his body. It turns out the flyians offer a lot of power in return for killing someone faster. With so many flies this guy was super tough. But don't worry. I beat him all on my own." Tamama lied and boasted a giant grin on his face as he took credit for Momoka's accomplishments.

"Where are the flyians then?" Giroro asked.

"Uhhhh they got away." Tamama replied. "It has nothing to do with me! Don't blame me."

Everybody looked at him suspiciously.

"Well...I think I'll go next with my report since I don't want you forgetting about me." Dororo decided. "Lady Koyuki and I went to her old ninja village to discover what her connection to the flyians were. We did not encounter any of the flyians although we did find one of her old friend's. I...I won't go into what happened. He did try to capture us, but...It's not my story to tell." Dororo looked very sad. "We learned afterwards from the old chief that Koyuki is five hundred."

"What?" Giroro asked.

"She barely looks it! Wow, she's looking super good for her age." Keroro complimented.

Dororo shook his head. "Pekoponians are naturally supposed to live to 40,000. The flyians however have been eating their lifespan so they only live 90 years. Koyuki's clan had a mutual agreement with the flyians to be untouched so she had the natural lifespan of a pekoponian. That was why she stayed in the forest for so long, the ninjas were trying to conceal this." Dororo explained.

"Knew it! Knew pekoponians were supposed to live longer! And Haru tried to make me stop talking about it. Ku, ku, ku!" Kululu cursed.

Everybody's eyes widened at the information Dororo had gotten. It was important.

They looked at Giroro, hopefully that he also had good information. "Uhh...They can give power to creatures they possess in return for something. I assume lifespan...Natsumi and I fought a yeti and almost died in a snowstorm. That's all." He very much tried to blot out most of his adventure.

Tamama narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Is that really all?"

"Yup." Giroro nodded in a hurry.

"Ku, ku, ku. And how much did you and Natsumi smooch?" Kululu teased, already guessing what Giroro was in so much of a hurry to hide.

Giroro turned a deeper red. "None! How dare you suggest something like that! I don't even have feelings for Natsumi! We're not dating! I don't know what you're talking about! Natsumi who?"

"You're dating?" Keroro just looked at him in shock. "Wow. That's even more surprising than Koyuki being five hundred."

Everybody nodded in agreement.

"W-what? It's..It's not that surprising is it? Not that unlikely? We'll stay together right?" Giroro asked worriedly.

Everybody stared at him. "It's surprising." They all said bluntly.

"Ku, ku, ku. We never thought Natsumi would return your feelings. We thought she had standards. Guess I was wrong. But you know, I can acknowledge when I've been wrong. Guess she didn't have standards after all." Kululu shrugged.

Giroro punched him. It was all back to normal.

Keroro ignored their antics. "This is good though! We're all on the same page now. And I'm very excited to save Pekopon! I believe in us. We can do this. We've done so much together! We're the best of friends. The Keroro platoon!"

Giroro stopped punching for a moment. He smiled to himself. If there's one thing that changes a bad situation it's Keroro's enthusiasm. It's oddly always got this inspiring quality to it.

Haru looked over worriedly towards the frogs. He hadn't been invited to their small little meeting, but he could hear them being in the same room. And he was eavesdropping something fierce. I want to free my friends. I don't want them to be caught by the keronians. He had to buy time. "Hey. I have an idea." He spoke up.

Everybody looked at him.

"You've all been away from your friend's for a while, right?" Haru asked. "And friendship is important. Why don't you celebrate your reunion with a barbecue or something. We're on the path to progress." He looked worriedly at Kululu and Giroro's cages full of flyians.

"I agree with Haru!" Aki smiled and clapped. "You all aren't failures. You're citizens of Earth. And you deserve to celebrate your progress. You need to relax so you can work even harder later." She was on board with a party.

Keroro smiled. "You heard that platoon? Relax now, because after tonight we're going to work even harder. We'll succeed for pekopon's sake!"

They all nodded. They could get on board with this.

---

Aki and Haru had volunteered to set up most of the barbecue so that everyone could have time to reunite.

Natsumi hurriedly pulled Koyuki along to their other friends that she missed, Momoka and Angol Mois. All four of them embraced each other.

"I missed you guys. I mean going hardcore survivalist in the mountains and almost dying from hypothermia is fun, don't get me wrong, but hanging out with my other female friends is also nice. I missed companionship from other girls." Natsumi admitted.

"I missed you too!" Angol Mois agreed.

"I missed everyone a lot, but I had to be there for Tamama, you know." Momoka nodded. "….You almost died? Did...Everybody have such an intense journey?"

"Well, I didn't almost die. I was doing pretty well actually. Giroro chose to go to the Himalayas because he was stupid. Picked a location that was the absolute worst for him." Natsumi admitted.

"So did Kululu!" Angol Mois smiled. "He picked a place with no technology. I guess Giroro and Kululu both picked bad places. Maybe they understand what the other is going through-"
"Please don't compare Giroro and Kululu. Giroro's better than that." Natsumi frowned.

Angol Mois was about to defend Kululu when Koyuki got in between them to stop an argument that might happen.

"So what was the worst part of our trips?" She asked.

Natsumi was taken aback. "Worst?" She thought for a moment. "Probably Giroro almost dying. It really worried me how cold he would get. Physically. I thought he might die and it scared me."

Momoka nodded. "I understand being worried for a friend. Paul got a hand stuck through the chest."
"Giroro's...Umm...He's actually my boyfriend now." Natsumi admitted. "Please don't compare him to Paul either."

"O-oh! Congratulations!" Momoka clapped. "I never thought a Hinata sibling would stop being dense."

Natsumi narrowed her eyes. "What does that mean?"

"My worst moment was when I killed a man." Koyuki interrupted. Yet again nobody heard her. Apparently Dororo's forgetablity had rubbed off on her.

Everybody instead turned to Angol Mois, waiting for her worst moment.

"Kululu yelled at me and asked me to leave." Angol Mois rubbed her arm awkwardly. "Then I got mad and stupidly left."

"Umm...Isn't that just everyday Kululu stuff? And isn't that not your fault?" Natsumi reassured. "Is that really your worst moment? Wasn't there anything worse that happened to you?"

"Umm...I was really worried about Kululu. I mean he almost died like multiple times too. But that's really something to do with Kululu, not me. I guess Kululu embarrassed me in front of Saburo. Does that count?" Angol Mois was trying to suggest things. "Although… I guess it wasn't really a bad thing. It wasn't the worst. The leeches was definitely a lot worse…."

"That's just average Kululu stuff!" Natsumi pointed out. "...What did he do to embarrass you?"

Angol Mois covered her mouth. "Not important." She was blushing a bit. "Ummmm…I gotta go." And then she ran out of the conversation.

"Is anybody going to ask me about the man I killed?" Koyuki asked.

Nobody did.

---

Giroro tried not to approach Keroro. He felt awkward around him. He knew Haru was pouring drinks and serving up some meats, and Keroro was happily chattering but despite what Dororo said, he still felt awkward.

"You avoiding the stupid frog?" Natsumi asked.

Giroro rubbed his arm. So she had noticed. "I...I don't know what to say to him. Or if I want to say anything to him. Does he really have nothing to do with this?"

"You should probably talk to your friend, Giroro." Natsumi advised. "I know the stupid frog is tough to deal with sometimes but he's probably struggling as much as you are."

Giroro looked at his feet. "I don't know if I can. I just feel like he's a reminder of the whole military thing and what they did to us."

Natsumi kissed him. "Will that get you to do it?" She knew it would. Giroro was already melting.

"U-um...Uhh yeah...Anything you want, babe." He had forgotten what he was being awkward about.

Natsumi giggled a bit.

Fuyuki locked on to what was happening. He rushed over and squealed. "Did...Did you just kiss Giroro? Like...On the lips?"

"Yeah….So?" Natsumi asked. "Why are you being so weird about it?"

Fuyuki just jumped up and down. "Because you kissed an alien! Oh my god. Is it finally happening? Are you dating? Does...Does this mean what I think it means? Alien brother-in-law? Alien nieces and nephews?" He looked so excited.

The excitement was intimidating to Natsumi and creeping her out. "Fuyuki. Um...Take a step back and cool down. You're...Kind of creeping me out, bro."

"Giroro! You're finally going to be my brother!" Fuyuki just assumed Natsumi was going to marry Giroro.

"Y-yeah. I g-guess so." Giroro nodded.

Natsumi groaned. Why were people so stupid and weird around her?

Aki walked over. "Did I hear that Giroro finally worked up the courage to ask Natsumi out?"

"What do you mean 'finally?'" Both Giroro and Natsumi said at the same time.

Aki ignored them. "Well, that's fantastic. Giroro is a stand up, fine guy." She smiled. "As long as he abides by a few simple rules at least."

Giroro saw Aki snap her knuckles.

"I'm prepared to abide by whatever rules and structure you're planning for your daughter." Giroro tried to be gentlemanly.

Aki nodded. "No knocking her up. My daughter's going to college and you will be appropriate. I don't care if you're living in our backyard, that ain't happening under my roof. Got it?"

Giroro saluted. "Yes Sir!"

"You will die a painful death if you make Natsumi pregnant before she graduates college. You will die a painful death if you somehow break her heart by putting your duties before her. That is all." Aki ordered.

Giroro nodded. "I would never put my planet above Natsumi again. She is so much more than that." He was taking this very seriously, like he was signing up for a mission. He was taking it much too seriously. "You can court martial me if I do something wrong, but I will be the perfect soldier- I mean boyfriend."

Aki smiled. They had an understanding then. They shook hands.

"My family is weird. My boyfriend is weird. I'm surrounded by weird." Natsumi looked at her hands. "Am I weird?"

"Natsumi, babe. You are a warrior woman who loves fighting. What's weird about that?" Giroro asked.

"I'm weird." Natsumi realized.

---

Dororo kept mostly to himself. And Koyuki of course. But his mind was occupied thinking about the cages Giroro and Kululu had brought back with the flyians.

It isn't right to let Keron eat them. Sure the flyians did some wrong things, but it will just start the cycle of hatred and predator and prey again. Not only that but Keron would be able to invade more planets and would become a greater civilization, they would advance and probably start treating other beings as less than them.

Dororo had been part of the higher society. He knew that was what it was like. He knew he couldn't let that happen.

He had to free the flyians. Had to release them all once they had them. Had to stop this cycle.

But he knew his friends would not agree with him. That they thought the flyians were down right evil. So I'm on my own.

"Is something wrong?" Koyuki asked, noticing how quiet he was.

Dororo looked at her. Should I tell her? I trust Koyuki. She's my partner. She would talk to me and tell me if my idea was a good one or bad one, honestly. Dororo thought. But for some reason his mouth wouldn't move.

He didn't want to tell her. Not because he didn't trust her but because he trusted her too much. He knew she would agree with him and help him with his plan to betray his platoon mates. And if his platoon mates ever found out he didn't want Koyuki to be blamed for his mistakes.

He didn't want her dragged down. He wanted her to be safe and to not be ostracized by her close friends like Natsumi.

"No. Everything's fine." Dororo lied. He told Koyuki nothing. In time he would tell her, but not now.

Support me in your thoughts. But this has to be my mission alone, Koyuki. I'm sorry. Dororo apologized.

---

Kululu watched Giroro talk to Natsumi closely. Eventually after Giroro had moved towards Keroro and talked to him, he approached.

"Will you really just forgive him like that? You'll forgive him that quickly for dragging the entire platoon down?" Kululu was miffed but more than anything surprised. I thought Giroro might have more pride than that. "You'll forgive him so quickly just because your girlfriend told you to? Ku, ku, ku?"

Giroro's face scrunched in irritation for a second, but he tried to cool down. "You should give Keroro a chance too." He suggested. "Natsumi would probably be happy. She's noticed that we're both kind of avoiding him."

"And I would care about Natsumi's feelings why?" Kululu inspected his fingers and scoffed. "I'm not you. Just because you want me to do something for Natsumi's oh so precious happiness doesn't mean I will."

Giroro rubbed his forehead. Kululu was a headache. He had not been displeased to be away from him.

"Ku, ku, ku. I just don't understand what you're doing. I agree with you that Keroro's at fault for a lot of this. Well, okay so he might not fully be at fault, but we shouldn't just embrace him like he's not an idiot." Kululu pointed out. "You were doing the right thing to ignore him. Why stop that?"

"It's like Dororo said we all bare some responsibility- Heck I bet you got put on the military for being a jerk to the higher ups or some crap like that. So you really have no right to complain." Giroro pointed out.

Kululu crossed his arms and glared. He wasn't going to confirm or deny that. "Sure, we're all failures in our own way, but I'll never forgive Keroro for dragging us down even more. We wouldn't have had to deal with this lie so long if he wasn't ruining things all the time. And he'll probably screw up about these flyians too. Release the cages you and I caught or something. Ku, ku, ku. He's a downright idiot. Are you going to ignore that?" Kululu sounded like he was just mad at Keroro and was looking for something to blame on him.

Giroro nodded. "Natsumi wants me to make peace. And...I'm going to try for her sake."

"Pathetic." Kululu replied.

Giroro was silent for a moment. Kululu's mockery always brought him down, but he was kind of curious. "Were...You asked to stop avoiding Keroro too?" He finally asked. "To forgive him?"

"By Natsumi? Nope." Kululu shook his head.

He's made snide, hateful comments about Keroro ever since getting back. I bet he's bitter because he was asked to forgive him too. Giroro realized. Kululu definitely had some issues with Keroro that had nothing to do with being exiled or the invasion. And Giroro could probably pinpoint those issues coming from one annoyance that he had been stuck with for three months and liked to talk non-stop about how amazing Keroro was.

Honestly, if Giroro had to listen about how great Keroro was he might have been more annoyed with him too. He hated being able to understand Kululu.

"I guess I was wrong about you having some sort of soldier's pride. Oops. Forgot you weren't a soldier anymore." Kululu mocked again. "You're only some lovesick fool following that pekoponian girl's every command and order."

"Don't mock me for doing something just because Natsumi asked me to." Giroro frowned. "You'd obey a girl too. Although you obeying someone is much sadder since instead of being out of love it's out of fear." Even if he understood Kululu's annoyance he was done with being insulted. "You're afraid that Mois's going to terrify you into talking to Keroro too."

Kululu didn't look that caught off guard by the accusation. He shook his head. "Mois's different than Natsumi." He finally said. "Sure, she could do that and she knows it. But she'd never exploit her powers like that when she knows I wouldn't like it. Because what makes her so scary is she's a good person."

Giroro frowned. That was...Surprisingly insightful and trusting of Mois.

Kululu turned away and sighed. "I guess the dream come true of not hearing about Keroro for a while is over though. Couldn't last forever. God, she talks about Keroro so much. I'm sure it'll start up against soon." True fear was in his voice.

Giroro actually pitied him. "I'll...I'll try to talk to Keroro honestly about being an idiot and dragging us down a bit after this whole flyian thing is over and done with. Right now he's surprisingly motivated and wants to save Pekopon. I don't want to ruin that."

Kululu glanced over. "So you're still mad?"

"I can't not be." Giroro admitted. "He squashed our dreams of invasion."

"So did you." Kululu pointed out. "I was the only competent one here. Ku, ku, ku." Kululu bragged.

Giroro left. He was done talking to Kululu because all conversation with Kululu was bad. He really should have learned that sooner.

---

Lots of things were going on during the barbecue. Momoka was flirting with Fuyuki and talking to him. People were speaking to one another and smiling.

Momoka was challenging Tamama to limbo and losing badly since Tamama was short. But Keroro's mind wasn't on any of the images around him.

Instead he was watching Haru closely. He could see Haru glancing at the cages with the flyians every now and then.

Now is the best chance I have. Keroro realized. Everybody is distracted by partying. Including Haru. He couldn't afford to waste time. Pekopon was in trouble.

He needed to exploit Haru somehow to find out where the other flyians were. And Keroro was already coming up with a plan. He could tell that Haru had his own plans to sneak off somehow and free the flyians. It was easy to tell that that was why he had suggested the party. Nobody else was paying attention to the pink haired man, they were too busy trusting Haru or being mad at Keroro.

Keroro was the only one who was focused. I need to gain his trust. If I give him the flyians we already have we both can sneak off to free them. Their friends will come out to help them and Haru and I'll catch all of them. Keroro decided.

He felt bad pretending to be on Haru's side. Haru would surely be hurt. Although he knew Haru was doing something wrong he still felt bad because Haru was Fuyuki's father.

Keroro watched Haru, wondering when was the best time to offer to pretend give the flyians to Haru, and talk him into sneaking off with him. He was about to get up when Tamama blocked his path.

"Hello, Mr. Sergeant!" Tamama smiled, unaware that Keroro was having any dramatic plots.

Keroro frowned. I can't let him see what I'm doing. I don't want him to think badly of me for conning someone and exploiting friendship. Friendship is precious to Fuyuki and Tamama after all.

"H-hello. I as going to go get a drink and uhh I probably have to go." Keroro tried to move around Tamama.

Tamama didn't notice that Keroro was trying to leave. "So what's a pretty thing like you doing in a place like this?" He was trying to do a bad pick up line.

"Having a party?" Keroro replied rather confused. He knew he was pretty but what was Tamama talking about.

"Ha ha ha." Tamama laughed awkwardly. This flirting was not going very well. "Umm...So listen, Giroro and Kululu are going to put on a firework show in a few minutes. I was...I was wondering if you'd watch it with me?" He tried to ask Keroro out. He didn't know if he was being clear enough. He could always back out if Keroro was creeped out.

"I would love to, but I promised I'd do something with Haru." Keroro lied, keeping his eyes on Haru and continuously trying to walk around Tamama.

Tamama frowned and sighed. "Are...Are you trying to avoid me? Are you going off to hang out with that woman in private where I can't see?" Tamama asked paranoid.
"What? No. I'm not trying to avoid you." Keroro denied. "I really appreciate your company, Private. You really helped me out on my journey and I was glad to have you there."

Tamama smiled and squealed a bit. "Well you know...I'll help you in whatever way I can." He giggled a little to himself. He was quiet for a moment, but then he said very seriously, "I'll do whatever I can to you, or so you don't have to do difficult things yourself."

Keroro didn't know what Tamama was talking about. Is he in some sort of trouble with the law?

All of a sudden Tamama scooted closer to Keroro and leaned his head against his shoulder. "Hey, Mr. Sergeant? Can I ask you something?"

"S-sure." Keroro wasn't sure why Tamama was acting so weird. But something must have been on Tamama's mind.

"Why did you choose to save me? You could have been at so many other battles that day. You could have left me. You could have saved other soldiers. Or you could have not worked as hard as you did to save me. You could have not carried me back to the medical bay for my wounds to be treated. So why did you save me? What made you choose me to work so hard to save?" It was something that had been on Tamama's mind for a while.

Keroro just looked confused. I...I still don't remember saving Tamama. What do I say? I don't even know what he's talking about. He knew Tamama had mentioned it before that Keroro had somehow heroically saved him, but he was under the impression that most of his heroic antics were exaggerated by mostly him or the media.

He didn't know how to answer the question. But because he cared about Tamama so much he tried to remember or look deep inside his soul for some sort of answer that would satisfy him. He was quiet for a good moment trying to think of an answer.

Finally he heard his own voice speak out. "Because I wanted something that was just mine. A precious memory to always have when I was sad." As soon as the words were blurted out, Keroro felt confusion.

He hadn't known that he would say that. Had it just been on the spur of the moment? And how could he use that as his answer when he didn't remember this supposed very precious event? It was the worst lie he could ever come up with.

Where did that answer come from? Keroro wondered. What precious memory? This memory is precious to Tamama when he's sad. Not to me.

He stopped being lost in thought when he saw Tamama's large smile. Tamama's eyes were watering. That was probably the exact answer he wanted. "It's that precious to you? You wanted us to be just yours?"

"I think I meant you. Not us." Keroro corrected gently.

"Awww,,," Tamama blushed. "You wanted me." He was sniffling a little bit and holding Keroro's hand. Keroro smiled a bit in response. He was glad that Tamama was happy with his answer. Although it still didn't make much sense to him. He hoped Tamama didn't ask him any more specifics on that event. Maybe it was just his normal bad memory though. Sometimes he didn't even remember that he had three best friends in childhood. He only remembered Giroro and Pururu and sometimes it was only Giroro!

"You...You know...I want you too..." Tamama shuffled his feet on the ground and blushed a lot.

Keroro didn't respond. I really don't know what Tamama's talking about. I lost him around the beginning of this conversation. It's confusing me. Keroro just continued to stare at him.

"Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I was a girl." Tamama continued talking, "Would you treat me a whole lot differently?"

"I'd probably treat you like Mois." Keroro laughed.

Tamama immediately started crying. That was not the answer he wanted. I already want you to treat me like that woman. So it's really hopeless just because I'm a dude. You would treat me different!

"W-what did I say?" Keroro asked.

"You would treat me differently. You were supposed to say that you liked me just the way I am. I can't believe that woman beat me again!" Tamama yelled.

What's this about? Is he okay? What did I say? Keroro wondered. He was super confused. But Keroro realized he'd probably be confused about a lot of things for the rest of his life. He just accepted his confusion.

"Well then….Don't worry about what ifs. I like you the way you are. Male. Just remember, you'll always be my darling platoon mate." Keroro tried to reassure.

Tamama wiped away his tears. He nodded. Keroro was trying. He was trying to reassure him. Should I tell him why I'm upset? Should I tell him about my feelings? He opened his mouth. This was the time. A dramatic party, Keroro telling him he wanted him.

What better time then this?

Keroro looked over Tamama's shoulder. Haru was beginning to leave. "I'm sorry. I have to go." He said quickly before Tamama could confess.

"W-what? Why?" Tamama asked. But it was too late. Keroro left Tamama to go follow Haru.

And Tamama's chance to confess was gone.

---

Keroro followed Haru to the back of the house, where the cages were being kept.

Okay. Remember the plan. Give him the cages, it will gain his trust. Tell him to release them away from here and watch him do it. Their friends will come to help him and Haru, catch all the flyians. Keroro repeated to himself over and over again.

"Hey, Haru, nice weather today, huh?" Keroro waved. Walking over to him.

Haru jumped up a bit, near the cages. He hadn't expected Keroro to catch him. "Keroro. I was...I was just checking on them. They're screaming."

"I know what you were going to do." Keroro narrowed his eyes. "You were going to free them." He picked up a cage. "But you're going about it the wrong way. It should be away from here so they don't caught again."

"You're helping me?" Haru asked.

"Of course! Your Fuyuki's father. And Fuyuki's dad deserves happiness." Keroro had his fingers crossed behind his back. He could see Haru's eyes opening as he saw Haru giving him his complete trust.

"I...I was wrong about you, Keroro." Haru knelt down. "I….I thought you would want to give the flyians to Keron. But that doesn't make any sense. Out of everyone you would be the one most against it. Fuyuki was right to trust you."

Keroro picked up an empty cage while Haru talked. He didn't know what Haru was talking about but he was glad to have his trust. "So….Will the others come to help their friends?"

"Yeah. They're all planning to regroup with me to free them." Haru didn't see the empty cage.

"I can come with you. I want to apologize. And we'll be sneaking off together away from the party, right?" Keroro suggested.

Haru nodded.

Keroro picked up a cage with the flyians. He was going to give it to Haru. The plan's working perfectly. You have to do this. He trusts you completely.

He looked at Haru's eyes. They were the same eyes as Fuyuki. Could he really exploit his trust like this? He imagined the moment when he caught all of the flyians. When Haru realized his friends were all dead thanks to placing his trust in the wrong person.

Keroro's lip quivered. His hands shook. This wasn't just any pekoponian. It was Fuyuki's father.

"I...I can't." He couldn't do it. He chickened out. The perfect plan and he couldn't go through with it.

"What do you mean? You want Keron to advance through their own hard work, right? Not because they're addicted to some other creature." Haru just stared at him confused.

"I….I wasn't going to let you fully free them. I was going to trick you, and capture them all. I was going to use your friendship to lure them out." Keroro confessed. "But I don't want to be that sort of person who uses the merits of friendship against people. I...I don't want to be the Keroro of back then anymore! I've manipulated enough people in my lifetime already." Keroro was on the verges of tears now. He just couldn't do it. "I can't use your trust. It would have worked but I can't do it."

He could already imagine Fuyuki scolding him.

"Sarge!" He heard Fuyuki's voice as Fuyuki ran around the corner. Natsumi was following him along with Tamama and the rest of the platoon.

"What are you doing here?" Haru asked.

"Tamama saw Keroro sneak off. He was worried and alerted us." Natsumi crossed her arms. "You were going to free them, dad? I worked hard for those flies! And so did Giroro!"

Fuyuki frowned. "We...We heard everything." He glared. "I...I can't believe you would use friendship that way, sarge. Is that why you fixed dad's and my relationship? To use it?" Fuyuki asked. "In a way that's exploiting me. You're making him trust you because you were my friend."

"I...I know...I did a lot of bad things..." Haru and Fuyuki were the only ones really looking down on him in some way. Exploiting someone's trust was rather low. Natsumi was just mad at her father though. Keroro covered his head. He didn't want anyone to kick him.

Fuyuki was the only one besides Haru that was visibly horrified. His anger subsided though. "You...You chose me in the end though. Our friendship over doing something risky. You...You did the right thing and realized your mistakes. So I can't be that mad at you." Fuyuki reached out to Keroro, letting Keroro take his hand. "Using someone's trust isn't the right way to win. That's the villain's way."

Keroro nodded. "You're right. In generic shonen anime only villains use that tactic." He paused. "I couldn't go through with it."

"Fuyuki! I really think it was Haru who did the wrong thing. We shouldn't be focusing on the stupid frog's plot and if it was dumb or not." Natsumi scolded.

Fuyuki glanced at Haru. "You kinda exploited me too. She's right."

Haru looked sheepish.

Everybody was talking about their own take on the matter about exploiting someone's trust. Tamama however was focusing on Keroro and in his own world. Mr. Sergeant was going to use Haru. Just like I was going to use that woman. Except probably with less risk of death involved. Tamama was also using trust and a deal to his benefit. Not friendship, but something.

Mr. Sergeant's too good to use someone though. He's...He's nothing like me. He's not as bad. And that was okay. It was something Tamama liked about Keroro.

Don't worry Mr. Sergeant. Now that your plan has failed, I'll fix it. I'll be the bad guy and bad one for the both of us. He had to do the wrong thing. He had to be bad. He would dye his hands red if it meant Keroro didn't have to. He didn't want Keroro to have to do something evil.

I know I'm also doing it out of my own selfishness though. I want to get rid of that woman after all. If Mr. Sergeant ever knew how bad of a person I was, he would never like me. He'd hate me.

He knew bad things were going to happen to Mois. It was inevitable with his plan. And there was a dark part of him that wanted that to happen. The nicest part of him just didn't care. He was terrified of his own evil and inability to care about what he was planning. A normal person would care more. But he wasn't caring.

The plan was simple. Lure Mois out alone and give her to the flyians. Exploit her trust like Keroro had tried with Haru. However instead of her feelings just being hurt it was likely that they'd either destroy her or devour her body. During that time Tamama would use the opportunity of distraction to capture them.

It was extremely likely that Mois would not live. But he would get the flyians. Keroro and him would save Pekopon.

Sometimes...You have to make difficult decisions. Sacrifice one for the many. Just because this is an easier decision for me than others because I don't like her doesn't mean it's less heavy. Tamama decided.

And so he moved away from Fuyuki and Keroro. He went off to go find Mois.

---

Angol Mois was leaning against a wall of the Hinata House dozing off. Tamama bounded over to her.

"Hey!" Tamama tried to look innocent. "I was wondering if you could help me with something. There's a box filled with party supplies that's too big for me to move. My arms are tiny and I was wondering if you could do the heavy lifting."

Angol Mois woke up. "You want me to do the heavy lifting?" She glanced at him. "I always kind of thought you were stronger than me. You could say, tough martial artist?"

Tamama smiled. "Well, maybe I just wanted to give you the opportunity to do things! You love doing crap for people right? I mean, you really like doing pointless tasks to help people? So I'm trying to be nice and give you one."

Angol Mois frowned. That's not exactly the way she would phrase it. "That...Doesn't sound very nice."

"Do you want to help me or not?" Tamama glared. Pretending to be friendly is hard. I don't know how long I can keep it up.

"I want to help! I'm always up for any opportunity to form a better relationship with you, Tamama! You could say, new friendship forming?" Angol Mois smiled.

God she grates on my nerves. Tamama smiled. "Yeah, new friendship!" The words made him feel guilty.

But he had to do this for Keroro. It was their opportunity. The planet's opportunity. And he was sure the flyians were watching somewhere. They had chosen him because they knew he would do it. But they didn't know he'd betray them at the last minute.

"Follow me." Tamama instructed. He led Angol Mois away from the party.

She hummed and followed along cheerily, as the two walked and walked a fair distance away from the Hinata House.

She started getting a little confused, but still unsuspecting once they got to a generally underpopulated area. Some sort of grassy hill. "This is really far away for a place to pick up a box." She frowned.

The hill was illuminated by moonlight. Tamama stood in the middle of it and sighed. This was the place. It was time.

He looked at Angol Mois one last time. I guess she deserves to have someone look at her one last time...I'll probably be the last one to see her. Was this murder? Or just assisted murder?

He didn't want to be a murderer. He was scared. But he had to do it. Tamama had to capture those flies for Keroro. For Pekopon.

I can't afford to have any guilt for that woman at the last moment. I have to remember everything bad about her so I can go through with this. Tamama reminded himself.

"What's in the box anyway? Why are these party supplies so important?" Angol Mois smiled and peered over his shoulder.

Tamama looked up at the moon. He didn't fully answer her. Instead he hit the back of her legs and tied a rope around them so she couldn't get away. He just ignored her confusion. "I brought her." He said simply. "Come out. You're around, right? You've been following me or something."

"Who are you talking to, Tamama-?" Angol Mois was cut off as the moonlight faded away. The moon seemed to turn black as a swarm of flies covered the sky.

It was all of them. The entire population that had come to Pekopon, just as Tamama had suspected. They had all gathered together. And the sky was thick with the mass of bugs because of it.

"Thank you." They told Tamama.

"Just doing my job..." Tamama laughed nervously. He hoped the flyians believed him.

The mass of flies seemed to get closer direct towards Mois. "Killing you will bring us no sustenance. But we must do it anyway, to save our home."

Mois's eyes widened. "Tamama-!"

Tamama just brought out another rope. He needed Angol Mois to stay put while he captured the flyians with the special cages he had hidden in the area. He tied up her hands. As she struggled against Tamama, her phone dropped to the ground snapping a quick picture of the flyians. The flyians buzzed from the flash but ignored it not thinking too much about it.

Tamama didn't say anything to Mois. There was no apology that he could utter. He didn't want to talk. He just moved away once her hands were tied up.

The flyians descended on her. It was like a swarm of a massive wave. Tamama was desperately moving away to behind a bush to grab the cages he had set up for this event, but he still saw some of it. And it was an image that would haunt him until his dying days.

The flyians tried to nuzzle into her flesh, eating it and ripping off pieces with their tiny flyian mouths. Mois screamed and struggled, eventually ripping off the ropes that Tamama had bound her with.

"You will not get away." The flyians spoke. Suddenly pieces of the sky became clear again as many of the flies grouped together into a shape- chains. They bound her wrists and ankles with black, fly like chains, cursing her to the ground instead of letting her fly off. The rest of them tried to fight against her and eat at her.

Tamama hurriedly grabbed some of the cages and ran over. He winced as he saw yet again what was happening to Mois. The eating was progressing, but unlike what would happen to a normal person she wasn't becoming a skeleton. Instead her existence itself seemed to just glitch out. The pieces of her facade, her blonde hair, her clothing changes appearance in pixels of all the different other forms she had taken throughout her life. It was as if they were eating her energy, erasing who she was.

This...This kind of death might be too horrifying even for her. Tamama felt nauseous. But he had the cages now. The flyians were in front of him. He could stop this.

Her role had been fulfilled.

"Hey! Stop that!" Tamama yelled, trying to grab one flyian with his fist to shove into a cage. His voice might not have been heard over Angol Mois's loud ear shattering screams.

The flyian avoided his fist and flew above him. Suddenly the flyians eating Angol Mois stopped. The ones chaining her still kept in their position but the other half turned to Tamama.

"Uh-oh." Guess that's what happens when I try to do something good and go back on what I did. Tamama stood strong. He was stronger than them. He believed in himself.

"Oh Tamama! We wanted to thank you again." The flyians spoke with fondness. "Thank you for being a creature of pure predictable selfishness. We knew the premise of getting rid of your rival was a strong one. You're just like any other keronian." They laughed.

"What?" Tamama asked. He thought they trusted him. Was he the one who was tricked and used? Not the other way around? "I'm not just like any other keronian! I'm the keronian who's going to capture you!" He ran forward with his cage.

The flyians just dodged and buzzed in a way that symbolized mocking laughter. "You're right. You aren't like other keronians. We sense that you're extremely unstable."

"So? Unstable can be a good thing. It's why I can do this. TAMAMA IMPACT!" Tamama yelled shooting for one of the chains.

Some of the flyians got obliterated. But more took their place. They hadn't moved because it would risk releasing Angol Mois, who was a much more terrifying monster than Tamama.

The flyians didn't seem amused anymore that some of their friends had been killed by Tamama. "Unstable is not a good thing. Truth is if you captured us and keron had us...If you ever ate one of us you'd probably be one of the keronians who couldn't handle the power. You'd die painfully if you ate one of us" They told him,

"Keronians don't die from eating flyians! We were meant to eat you!" Tamama yelled, calling out the lie.

"They didn't use to die. But due to being away from our race for generations, you've developed imperfections….Genetic deformities. A lot of you wouldn't be able to deal with the power and would die. Your body would dissolve, every particle of your body would explode. Perhaps you'd go through something like this girl is going through." They mocked. "You are definitely one of the ones who would die. And thus you are less than an ant to one of these pekoponians to us." Suddenly the flyians formed a new shape. A giant hand.

Before Tamama could roll away or dodge the giant hand went down upon him, squishing him against the ground. It made his head pound with blood loss, and pain. He couldn't breathe. It hit him again and again until his head was spinning and he realized he was about to lose consciousness.

It had squashed him. He really was nothing compared to the flyians.

"We weren't meant for you, tiny one. You are just an ant." They told him and squashed him one last time.

Tamama was bleeding on the ground. He looked desperately at Angol Mois. "Kero ro. M o " He tried to gasp out the words, "I'm sorry". He regretted his plan. He regretted the screams. But it was too late. He couldn't say he was sorry. I'm sorry, Mr. Sergeant. I'm sorry that woman.

They would both die here at this rate. And that wasn't right. It was supposed to be that one of them would live to be with Keroro.

I should have accepted that woman and Mr. Sergeant's love. True I might have had Mr. Sergeant's attention by default if she was dead, but he wouldn't want me and he would have hated me. If I hadn't been so jealous none of this would have happened. He gasped and coughed up blood. The flyians are right. I am unstable.

And he was out. He closed his eyes as the flyians went back to their true prey.

---

When Angol Mois's phone had hit the ground and snapped a picture it had immediately sent it accidentally to the last person she texted.

"Hold up now," Kululu stopped Giroro from lighting his specially made fireworks for everyone. "I just got a text. Probably Mois. I wonder where she wandered off to. Ku, ku, ku." He flipped open his phone and glanced at it.

On the screen was a picture of a swarm of flyians in the air. Little tiny flyians were biting into what was clearly Angol Mois's ankle from the angle it was at.

Kululu's face turned pale. His hands were shaking "I...I think Mois is in trouble." He was trying to process his thoughts, get everything in order. "Mois's found the flyians. They appear to be attacking her. We need to go there. NOW." Kululu was not going to sugar coat the information he had.

"What?" Giroro asked. "Why do you think that?"

Kululu handed him his phone. Everybody else in the group looked worried.

"Whoa, whoa. Maybe we should slow down, think up a plan of action, figure out how to find Mois- How do you know she's fully in trouble?" Keroro pointed out.

"I have a device that can locate her. We can find her in a matter of minutes." Kululu said quickly. "And it's clear from this picture she's in trouble. If she didn't send a text afterwards about it she clearly no longer has access to her phone to correct things."

"But, we need a plan-This is all going so fast-" Keroro was sweating.

"I've got a plan." Kululu threw his phone down on the ground and pressed a button, to spin down to his lab and grab some things. He was back in mere seconds. "Go to Mois. Save Mois. Take out the flyians. Simple. Ku, ku, ku." There was a little bit of panic in his voice. Clearly not the most thought out plan.

"Awww...Are you freaking out?" Saburo tried to tease a little bit. "See? You do care about her-"

Kululu narrowed his eyes. "Shut up, Saburo. I don't have time for this. None of us have any time for this. I'm not going to lose her."
Saburo silenced himself.

Dororo picked up Kululu's phone to examine it. His eyes were better than Kululu's. "Is...Is that navy blue in the background? Tamama?" He looked around. Tamama wasn't with them. Was he with Mois?

"Must have been foul play. If I could wager anything on it I bet Tamama gave Mois up to the flyians so he could catch them while she got tortured or something. He would do that." Kululu hissed.

Keroro shook his head. "Tamama wouldn't do that! Well...Tamama would decide against that at the last minute." He corrected. "But...Tamama might have been captured too. You're right."

Kululu paced around trying to think of a way to save Mois all on his own. His plan was not the most thought out and it didn't take him very long to realize he couldn't probably do this on his own.

"Listen, Keroro." Kululu turned to him and walked over to him, desperately grabbing onto his arm. "Although I hate you, I need you right now. I can't do this alone. Please...I'm begging you to get the rest of the platoon together to save Mois." Kululu paused.

"You're our supposed leader so we'll listen to your orders. I probably can't do all this alone, I never can, so I need your help." Everybody could tell that Kululu was having great difficulty asking for help. It wasn't something he liked to do, but he really needed to be on the safe side. "I'll use every tool at my disposal if I have to. The platoon for some reason succeeds at rescue missions. And I can't argue with results."

Keroro nodded and smiled. "I wouldn't abandon Mois and Tamama. Don't worry Kululu." He didn't know why Kululu thought he was that heartless, but he suspected Kululu just wasn't thinking that clearly. Or he thought that Keroro was like himself and only cared about people precious to him. Kululu looked really worried though so he cut him some slack for not thinking clearly.

"Keroro platoon!" Keroro looked at his platoon mates. "I have one last set of orders for you. One last mission as your sergeant. I need you to capture the flyians that have captured Mois and Tamama. And save our missing teammates!"

Giroro and Dororo saluted. "You can count on us."

"What do you want us to do, sarge?" Fuyuki asked. "I want to help to."

"You're an idiot if you think I'm leaving Tamama alone." Momoka frowned.

Keroro looked at Koyuki, Momoka, Fuyuki and Natsumi. "You four are honorary members of the Keroro platoon now. Please follow my orders and come with us. I believe only together we can capture the flyians."

"You can't capture my friends!" Haru yelled. "I'm coming with you. You need an adult there, to make sure things go right but that nobody...Including the flyians get hurt."

Saburo raised his hand. "Yo, hey. I know this is a dramatic moment but I volunteer to not go on this heroic journey and instead keep watch of him." He pointed on Haru. "He'd probably only mess things up. I feel like he's the type who would let Mois and Tamama die for those fly friends of his. What did they even do to get so much of your loyalty?"

Haru glared as Saburo grabbed his wrists, tightly.

Keroro smiled. "Thanks." He looked at his friends. "You heard him. It's time for our heroic adventure. The mission to save Tamama and Mois begins now!"

---

Kululu led them to where Angol Mois likely was. It was a fair distance away but eventually they came to a hill. The sky was gone, covered in flyians.

It was so dark. It made them all feel chilly that the moon was gone.

"Stupid keronian. Thinking he could trick us by using a sacrifice to distract us so he could catch us. How foolish." They spoke to themselves.

"I knew Tamama was responsible for this." Kululu cursed.

Keroro frowned. "Tamama..." He couldn't condone what he had done. Still, despite what they said it did have the merit of results. All of the flyians are here. That's clear enough by how there is no moon. How dark the sky is.

"What do we do now, Keroro?" Giroro whispered, he could barely see anything in this thick darkness. Who knew where Tamama and Mois were?

Kululu wasn't listening. He had his own plan. He took something out of a bag. "You do your own thing. I have some bugs to kill. KU, KU, KU!" His hand wiped out with a can of bug spray.

"That...Can't work...Can it?" Natsumi winced.

"Specially made. Made it myself based on their biology. It will definitely kill them." He rushed forward. Everybody followed him as Kululu just sprayed bug spray in the air, letting the thick darkness start to drop as the flyians dropped to the ground.

Giroro grabbed his arm. "You can't do that. Keron needs those creatures!" He reminded. "They'll rip Pekopon apart if they don't have them. They need them alive. We can't kill them. We have to capture them."

Kululu scoffed. "I don't care. You have your goals, I have mine. We both have something we have to protect right now. The thing important to me isn't as sappy as a planet though." Kululu shoved Giroro off and continued spraying.

Giroro couldn't stop him. And just like that as another fly dropped to the ground, the flyians clued in that they were being attacked.

"Ugh. The Green one sneaked up on us again. It's happening all over again." They just all turned to Keroro.

It was time to fight. The battle had begun. And Keroro knew there wasn't any time to be ready. He had to find Tamama and Mois.

Before he could give better instructions to his platoon they all went their separate ways, as the flyians rushed them and darkness made it difficult for them to navigate.

And nobody knew where anybody was.

---

The darkness was thick, but Kululu managed to navigate pretty well. Perhaps it was that he was used to a no light atmosphere, perhaps it was that he just kept spraying whatever was in front of him to clear a path. Eventually the flyians got smart enough to just part the pathway so that they wouldn't die.

"If you think you're better and stronger than us, you're very mistaken." The flyians mocked. "Your entire platoon is filled with cracks and insecurities. We've used at least two of your members fears against them, reading their memories and exploiting them. You yourself are filled with insecurities-"

"Sorry? Were you talking? Couldn't hear you over your children and friends dying. Man, in the end you really are just bugs." Kululu stomped on another bug. "Ku, ku, ku. If you want to try to be the superior one against me you should maybe try a little harder. Try to not die or something. That makes you look a little better. Oh wait! You can't do that." He sprayed one fly and just tightly tugged the wings off of it.

It was probably grotesque to the flyians. But to Kululu it was literally just a bug. "Using insults to get to people is my forte. So if that's your only strength and tactic you're in a losing battle."

The flyians screamed in infuriating anger. "There are other things we could do! We could...We could bite you."

"Try it." Kululu shrugged and just kept walking.

The flyians swarmed at him, trying to grab at his skin with their little mouths. Kululu didn't spray any bug spray. Instead he grinned.

"AUGH! What….What is that? Ick! What's on your skin? It's...It's not flesh...It's poison! And it burns!" There was just painful screams in Kululu's mind.

"Ku, ku, ku. Curry. I bathe in it. It takes specific adaptations to handle spice. Guess you can't touch me? Really sucks to be you right now. Oh wait, I don't care. Don't have any pity for you guys." Kululu reached out to squish some more flyians. They swarmed away from him in absolute fear.

"You….We could read your memories...Your worst memories. Your insecurities-" They desperately tried to conjure up a plan against Kululu.

Kululu kept on walking. "I really don't have time for you childish play on people's insecurities tactic. If you think bringing up old memories will save you from my rage, you're absolutely mistaken."

"You're...You're filled with insecurities! It will work! There's so much about you that's wrong!" They tried to desperately point out.

"So? And I know it. I have to live as myself every day. So just cuz somebody else says something doesn't mean I'll drop everything to cry. I'm not a crybaby. But...I can see that you are." He squished another flyian with bug spray. He heard the flyians scream in terror.

"Better run, or else I could eat you. Keronians do that you know." He pointed out.

They screamed again and ran.

He grinned and just kept walking, until they cleared a path for him and he could run. He was done with them. He had to get to Mois.

He reached her, still bound in chains by the flyians. Her other forms had finally dissolved and she was in her angolian form.

He sprayed the chains and the flyians melted away from her ankles.

"Mois. Come on. I'm here. Wake up! We've got to get out of here." He tried to tug at her arm. But she just wasn't moving.

Angol Mois's eyes were closed, despite what horrors had happened to her body, she seemed somewhat peaceful, just laying there silently. There were a clear number of bruises all along her body, and it seemed oddly tired. It didn't have a healthy sort of glow to it, it was like it was fading away, or melting away.

"Come on! Wake up! You know I can't carry you out here! And despite how afraid of bug spray the flyians are they will come back to finish the job if you don't wake up right now!" Kululu started shaking her shoulders. "I understand wanting to sleep but this is no time. This is serious, Mois."

He knew she wasn't actually sleeping. But he wanted to believe she was just taking one of her usual naps, that she wasn't waking up by choice.

His hands were trembling as he touched her. "C-come on." He begged. "I...I don't want you to get eaten by them. I can't cover you or anything with my body. I'm too small. I can't do anything but get you away from here. This is serious. Wake up…" He begged.

She made no movement.

He felt useless. I came here. I got to you. It can't be too late. You're just...Heavily injured or something. You've got to pull through. "It really is serious, Mois! You're life is serious. It's real serious to me! Stop...Stop napping!" He threw his head on her chest, to hide that he was about to cry. He didn't want the flyians to see it. They'd throw themselves at any weakness.

Yet again there was no sound. Not even a breath was taken. Everything about her looked so weak, so like it would disappear in moments.

"Stop it! This isn't fair! You have to wake up!" Kululu screamed. "You're a good person. You're kind. This isn't like you. You wouldn't do something so cruel and horrible like dying on me or anything! You said you'd stay by my side because you were my friend. You're not a liar." He hugged her tightly.

She didn't move. She was a liar. She was leaving him. It was just like the rain forest and how she had left in anger. Except this time was so much worse. She might not ever come back.

Kululu felt worse too, because this time the situation really had nothing to do with him. He had no part in it. And for some reason knowing that he was completely helpless made him feel even worse. He didn't cause this, so he couldn't fix it.

He was just too late. He felt the ebbing feeling of hopelessness start to eat away at him.

He hugged her tighter and just started sobbing. "Come on, how can you make me fall in love with you and then leave me? That's not fair. Just...Just please wake up. I promise to never use you. I'll even help you with Keroro. Just...Be fine."

He knew words couldn't help her in anyway. But he just felt himself talking anyway.

The flyians seemed to sense that Kululu was faltering. Since he was by far one of the most infuriating problems in the group, they started surrounding the two of them.

Even if they couldn't eat at him they might be able to cut off airways. They got closer and closer.

Kululu didn't notice. He was too busy looking after Angol Mois.

The buzzing was loud. Even someone with their eyes closed could hear it. But Kululu still didn't notice.

A weak hand shot up to swat the flyians away, before they created some sort of fly tornado. Mois's hand fell onto Kululu's back.

He sprung up. "Mois?"

"K-kululu." She wasn't feeling too well, but her eyes had opened. She had woken up. Some in part because Kululu was being very loud and yelling at her, and some because she needed to protect them both from the flyians.

Kululu tried to smile as he wiped away and remains of tears. He didn't say much. He just hugged her tightly as if hoping that she'd never leave again.

She smiled at him and held him too. She couldn't do much more. But she was alive.

---

Dororo tried to run through the mess of flyians. If I kill or capture any of them the cycle of hatred will just continue, more and more. This will happen again in the far future. No progress would be made.

So he had to pretend to be fighting. He unsheathed his sword and started to pretend to slice at the flyians. Out of everyone he was the only one who could distinguish where each of the flyians were in the mass. His assassin eyes let him. Koyuki's eyesight was also that good.

"Dororo! You doing all right?" Koyuki asked throwing a kunai knife. It missed but hit into the ground with a piece of paper tied to it making a small light explosion.

"Yes, Lady Koyuki!" Dororo lied. Fighting the flyians had never been his goal, but he didn't want to bring the team down by just faking it.

"Good. I'll cover your back. You cover mine. That way the flyians can't sneak up on us." Koyuki decided.

Dororo's lip quivered. She didn't know yet.

He let Koyuki get into position at his back, feeling for a moment like he didn't deserve it if he wasn't giving her the full story.

She continuously shot kunai knives at the flyians.

He couldn't continue like this.

"I….I don't want to do this, Lady Koyuki. If we kill them….If we capture them, the cycle of hatred will just continue. It's not good for my planet or the flyians." Dororo confessed as he moved forward to slice into the air to protect Koyuki's arm from a mess of flies.

Koyuki glanced at him in confusion. "So...You don't want to fight? You...Think it's not the right thing to do?" She always wanted to do the right thing.

"I wish we could talk to them or find a non-violent solution." Dororo confessed.

Koyuki thought for a moment. Suddenly her hands started going in a symbol of patterns. "Dororo! Do the wind art! We can disrupt their flying pattern to freeze them. Nobody will get hurt and we'll be able to see. You or I won't have to slice anything."

Dororo's eyes widened. Why hadn't he thought of that? Because Koyuki is much more of an expert in ninja arts than I am. She's always got great ideas. He smiled. He was glad he had Koyuki on his side.

He did the symbols in synchronization with Koyuki. They locked hands together and suddenly a giant tornado appeared around them as they spun.

The flyians froze in their tracks, a bunch being caught in the tornado. They couldn't move. But they couldn't be attacked either. They just were sucked into the tornado. And slowly, things became less thick with flyians.

Koyuki's plan had worked.

---

Momoka was on her own. Her keronian partner was not around. "Tamama! Tamama!" She yelled. But Tamama was nowhere to be found.

She couldn't see. And although she was good in a martial arts tournament she couldn't punch a fly. So she decided to make herself useful in the only way she could.

By using her supplies and her money to help her teammates.

Everybody had gone off in different directions as she held a giant net that had been made with Nishizawa money. It would secure and keep the flyians that they needed to catch. But where were the flyians that could be caught?

They flew away from her when she got close. And she couldn't see anything in this darkness. As soon as Kululu had run off everybody had gone their own way in irritation.

She felt bad that nobody really was thinking of Tamama. Yes, he had made some mistakes, but he was still her friend.

She looked around desperately for him. Suddenly she saw a bright flash of light, like an explosion.

"Tamama?" She remembered his Tamama impacts. She ran over.

"Ninja art: Wind tornado!" She heard Koyuki and Dororo's voice. Suddenly the air cleared up along with the sky. Thousands upon thousands of flyians got caught and sucked up in a giant tornado.

Momoka latched her feet into the ground. "A little wind won't suck up a Nishizawa!" She was stronger than this. She held onto her net tightly.

She smiled as she saw the flyians. She jumped into the air as if she was about to slam dunk a basketball. And she swooped in and caught them all.

"Score one for us!" she smiled.

Dororo did not look very amused.

---

Natsumi and Giroro held hands so they wouldn't get lost in the mess of flyians.

"We've got to go after Kululu and make sure he doesn't ruin things for Pekopon!" Giroro instructed, trying to go through the storm of flyians like it was a sand storm.

"Let's not focus on Kululu." Natsumi suggested. "We should be focusing on kicking these bugs butt. There's too many of them to just focus on one group."

Giroro couldn't glance at her, but his hand tightened as if he was giving reluctant agreement. "Be careful, Natsumi. I heard they eat pekoponian lifespan. What if they try to eat you?"

"I'll punch them off my skin then. I'm not a weenie. I can take a bug biting me. I'll just squash it!" Natsumi proclaimed.

Giroro probably got doey eyed at how much of a warrior she was.

"So...It's the discarded soldier and the pekoponian he's lovesick for?" The flyians finally acknowledged Giroro and Natsumi's presence. "Eat her. We've sustained heavy injuries from...An apparent weapon called bug spray."

Natsumi glared straight ahead at the mess of flyians. They shot forward like an arrow to swarm her. But then they stopped right in front of her nose before touching her.

"Pink hair...It couldn't be...That's rare in pekoponians….Haru?" They realized.

"Yuck! I'm shorter than him! I'm just his daughter! Get your heights right!" Natsumi frowned.

"Haru's….Child? But...This is wrong. We could never hurt someone related to Haru. And as someone with pink hair you're clearly related to Haru." They realized. "Oh no! We can't touch her!"

"Good. Perfect." Natsumi cracked her knuckles. Giroro threw her a beam sword.

"But...Haru's precious child is dating a keronian. The poor thing has been conned. We can kill the keronian. We might not be able to hurt her, but we can hurt him!" They had an excited buzz as they tried to find a loophole.

Suddenly they all swarmed together into a giant bull like beast. They had a goal now. To kill Giroro.

Giroro pulled out a gun. "Perfect. Forming a shape makes them easier to target." He pointed.

"But...I thought we were capturing them, not killing..." Natsumi whispered.

Giroro nodded. "Look over there." He pointed. "Momoka's waiting with a net. Just push them into it."

Natsumi smiled. It was time to do what she did best- fight. Running forward with Giroro by her side, she tried to separate the monster into pieces to confuse it and make it reform. She just sliced with her beam sword over and over again.

Giroro shot at it. "You're doing great, Natsumi. It's always been my dream to fight by your side." He would say.

Natsumi grinned. "Stop complimenting me and focus on the battle! Wouldn't want you to slow down."

Giroro blushed and tried to focus on the target instead of Natsumi. It was difficult, but he managed to do it.

The flyians screamed and started backing up. Eventually into Momoka.

"Hey." She greeted and swooped forward catching them.

Natsumi smiled. "That will teach you to just think of me as Haru's kid. I want nothing to do with him anymore!"

The flyians just shivered. "You might have won the battle, but you're still losing. You've caught maybe thousands of us. There are millions. How will you catch all of us?"

Giroro glanced at the night sky. The darkness of the flyians just moving. They were right.

They all had a heavy task ahead of them.

"Let's….Hope Dororo or Kululu pull much more than their own weight." He couldn't relay on Keroro after all. It wasn't like he'd be able to catch all of them.

After all Keroro wasn't very good in fights. Best case scenario Keroro was a distraction.

Giroro looked throughout the plains of the hill for more flyians, and the rest of their friends.

---

Fuyuki was afraid. He didn't like bugs. And he was even more afraid of the flyians after what happened last time.

He clutched at the ground and crawled desperately trying to follow Keroro. He couldn't leave him alone though. Two was better than one and he didn't want Keroro to be swarmed and killed.

Keroro had been desperately screaming for Tamama and feeling around to try to find him. Fuyuki was happy enough that they were focusing on their friends lives before fighting the monster that was the hivemind of the flyians.

Still it didn't sound like there was much luck in finding Tamama.

"S-should...We look for Mois?" Fuyuki suggested. Maybe they should try the other missing teammate.

"Kululu's got her. He rushed straight into the darkness to get her. I wish he would have waited so we could go looking for Tamama and Mois together but...I can hardly blame him. I'm certainly worried about what happened to Tamama. TAMAMA! Where are you?" Keroro yelled again.

I hope he's alive...He's not answering though. Fuyuki thought. Keroro was ahead of him, but he could still see his legs. They were probably the lowest to the ground, him and Keroro.

"Fuyuki...You're going rather slowly. We've got to speed up." Keroro instructed.

Fuyuki was still crawling. "I...I don't want to stand up. Then the flyians will notice me." He was so afraid of the flyians possessing him again. He tried to open his mouth as little as possible. Why can't I stop shaking? Tamama and Mois are in much more trouble than me. Yet I'm afraid of the flyians possessing me again and hurting me.

"Hey...Sarge…?" Fuyuki spoke up.

"Yeah?" Keroro asked.

"Would you still be my friend and care about me and remember me even if I was dead or possessed?" A rather morbid thought entered Fuyuki's mind.

Keroro didn't glance back at him. He was still looking around for Tamama. "Of course I would." He replied. "You're my friend forever, remember, Fuyuki! Things will stay the same forever between us. We're the great Sergeant Keroro and his best friend, the pekoponian boy Fuyuki Hinata!"

Fuyuki didn't have time to utter a thank you or a sigh of relief. Instead he heard something.

"We've sustained heavy injuries. Some of our members have even died." The flyians were buzzing in Keroro and Fuyuki's mind. They were speaking.

"What do we do?" One asked.

"We heal. We need food. We need energy. Life energy to heal the ones injured. To re spawn the ones dead. We need a full healthy body of food. Something with a good lifespan on it." One suggested.

"What about that one? That boy doesn't have pink hair. Must not be related to Haru if that's the case. And he tasted pretty yummy last time I checked." A flyian suggested.

Fuyuki knew immediately who they were talking about. Immediately he felt himself shiver. He covered his mouth and pinched his nose. Can't get in me if I close my mouth! He was smarter than them.

"Fuyuki- who are they talking about?" Keroro turned around, just as the flyians descended on Fuyuki's small and fragile body.

Keroro's question was answered.

Fuyuki closed his eyes and tried to just curl up in a ball so that the flyians couldn't get him. But to his surprise they didn't move anywhere near his mouth, instead they started nestling into his arms and body. They put their heads on him as if burrowing into every pour and eating away at his life force.

Fuyuki didn't know if any entered his body. All he felt was blackness and the feeling of every organ rupturing simultaneously. He held his hand over his mouth tightly but the flyians and him had bonded so much that everyone could hear Fuyuki's screams in their head.

"AHHHHH!" The voice was no doubt Fuyuki. But it was a short scream. All to suddenly it ended and there was only the sound of uncomfortable silence.

After a moment the buzzing started again.

Everyone froze.

"Fuyuki!" Momoka yelled. She ran over to him at top speed.

"F-f...Fuyuki?" Keroro walked over to Fuyuki ever so slowly.

Momoka slid to a halt as she reached Fuyuki. She fell to the ground as the flyians left him.

In front of Keroro and Momoka wasn't the Fuyuki they knew. Instead it was the shape of a bleeding human, no signs of life any longer. His eyes were open and all of his body looked broken, the bones, parts of the skin. Everything.

Momoka let out a scream. "He's...He's d-dead!"

Keroro just looked down at his old friend. His best friend. His precious human companion. He could almost hear Fuyuki's voice. "Will you always remember me, Sarge?"

"I….I will..." Keroro let out a whimper. "Fuyuki….No..N-no..." He felt himself breaking as he continued to look at the sight before him.

His sobs weren't nearly as large as Momoka's. He wasn't even sobbing. He just felt this tornado of emptiness. This fear. Tamama was gone- the flyians had proven that they would kill and he was probably dead in a similar fashion, and they had killed Fuyuki in front of him.

Something in Keroro snapped. He broke. Too many of his friends had died, or were dead. None of them should have been hurt.

"NO MORE!" He screamed. He just wanted to cry. But there were no tears in Keroro as he snapped. Instead a light emitted around his entire body, and the ground cracked under him.

The light didn't disappear as the sky lit up. Everybody could see where the flyians were and where Keroro was now. He just looked up at the flyians, his eyes dark with rage.

But something was very wrong about Keroro as he raised his hand. The flyians buzzing started to sound like trembling.

And suddenly the flyians all dropped to the ground as if gravity itself was descending on them by just a wave of Keroro's hand. It wasn't normal.

The flyians desperately tried to get up. Some of them managed to enter the sky again, but Keroro was ready.

He jumped into the air. He seemed to float because for some reason he didn't go back to the ground. Moving faster than anything that anyone had ever seen he seemed to grab each fly individually and drop it into a net. Despite there being billions of flyians he did this individually for each and every one in a matter of seconds.

"You can't take us down. W-we...We have your memories. We can enter your memories. Yes. Would you like to see that boy again?" The flyians shivered.

Keroro didn't say anything. He just blasted the flyian with a beam of light. His expression seemed frozen, stoic. "If you have my memories, doesn't that mean I have your minds too? That our minds could be connected for one brief moment?" Keroro's voice was in their minds.

He had entered their minds for some sort of psychic link. He just held open another net. "This is the only safe place." He directed.

And for some reason from his lies, some of the flyians believed him. They flew into the bags, falling for his psychic tricks.

Keroro continued to fly in the air as the sky became less and less thick with flyians. They tried to flee, but Keroro was still there, rushing around the boundaries of the hill and grabbing them.

"Everybody run! It's Keroro! He's here!" They just screamed.

And Keroro managed to smile as if he had forgotten what he had just seen. "You're right. It's me."

Not a single fly managed to escape his wrath. He captured them all as the remainder of his platoon mates watched along with his friends, not quite sure what was going on.

For such an incredible task, the glowing Keroro did not take very long at it. It took 30 seconds tops to capture quadrillions and quadrillions of flies.

He slowly descended onto land again, and as if every step he took created absolute stunned silence he walked over to the broken Fuyuki.

"I'm sorry about what happened to you." He apologized. He leaned over and touched his forehead to Fuyuki's the star on his cap glowing.

As if by magic, Fuyuki blinked. The light emitting around Keroro spread to Fuyuki and the injuries on his body closed up and healed. A mark seemed to appear on Fuyuki's head though, bright yellow like a birthmark. It was a star, like a tattoo.

It glowed, until he was fully healed.

Fuyuki coughed.

"Fuyuki!" Momoka hugged him. She didn't even care about what mystical mumbo jumbo was going on. All she cared about was that Fuyuki was back.

Fuyuki smiled a bit but looked rather curiously at Keroro, or tried to look past Momoka. "Did...Did I just die? Or almost die…? Did….I...I remember a bit...The flyians...You touching my forehead…? The light..."

Keroro just nodded.

Fuyuki touched his forehead. He still felt the warmth of the star. He smiled. "Cool. I love cool alien stuff."

"You...Aren't bitter?" Momoka asked. "A bunch of flies tried to kill you!"

"But cool alien stuff." Fuyuki said simply. That and the flies were gone. He was too petrified by trying to figure out the mystery of what was going on to care about the dramatic almost death.

Keroro just stared at Fuyuki. His expression went back to neutral, the burning bright light still all around his body. He turned around as if he was done with Fuyuki, his eyes scanning around for more flies or something.

"Urk…." Tamama was waking up. Momoka's screaming over Fuyuki had woken him and he had seen the event of Keroro capturing the flyians.

Keroro walked over to him, slowly. It wasn't clear if he was mad. His expression just seemed to look like he felt distaste. Or disinterest.

It scared Tamama. This...This Mr. Sergeant's all wrong. Something about him isn't right. And it isn't the glowy light. He...He looks scary. Like he's better than all of us. Like we're just toys. This wasn't like his Mr. Sergeant. Keroro might have been an idiot, but he cared a lot about people.

Maybe Tamama was just reading into things too deeply though. He covered his head, realizing that with the way Keroro's fist was balled Keroro might be readying himself to take him out like he did to the flyians. He shivered. Maybe he's just mad at me. I did almost kill Mois. And I guess Fuyuki indirectly. I bet...I bet he hates me. He could see the anger in his eyes as Keroro approached him.

Keroro must have been seeing him for the first time clearly. He had messed up.

Tamama shivered. M-Mr...Mr. Sergeant." He shivered as Keroro approached him.

Keroro was going to kill him. He was at fault for everything. It was time for his judgment. His punishment. He was pure evil and didn't belong in this world.

"You...You can k-kill me...I know what you're going to do. I'm at fault for everything after all. I almost killed your best friend. I would have taken away the person who you'll date." Tamama felt himself gulp. He hadn't ever been afraid of Keroro before.

But he looked at him anyway. "You were the one who saved my life in the first place. I'm only alive thanks to you. So...I guess it's okay if you take my life away and destroy me." He didn't honestly know what Keroro was planning.

Normally Keroro wouldn't do such a thing, but Keroro...Keroro was looking so much different right now. Tamama hardly knew him. It didn't felt like the Keroro he had spent so much time with on Pekopon.

Keroro paused. His hand moved towards Tamama's head, his fist clenched.

"You...You can kill me! You obviously have the power to. You're...You're so powerful all of a sudden. It's...It's scary." Tamama was crying and shivering.

The hand unwrapped itself and pat Tamama's head. Tamama shivered. Was this a way of giving him one last mortal touch before his justified punishment? Two people had almost died?

He's afraid of me...A single thought seemed to be in Keroro's head. And as soon as it was thought, the glow seemed to slowly go away. The light around Keroro disappeared. His eyes seemed to return to normal, instead of the angry look they had.

"Tamama?" He asked, his voice sounding confused. He pat Tamama's head more.

"Y-yes?" Tamama asked, confused.

Keroro grabbed him and hugged him. "I found you! I thought you were dead like Fuyuki is." He felt his voice crack.

"Actually I'm right here and I'm fine-" Fuyuki tried to tell him from behind Keroro. "Don't you remember? You literally just healed me with alien science!"

"Oh." Keroro decided to put that mystery away to be questioned about later. He was very confused. But he just held Tamama tighter because he felt very tired and like he had had a very long and bad day. "I'm so glad you aren't dead or hurt, private. I don't know what I would have done if you were dead like Fuyuki."

"Still….Not dead." Fuyuki tried to correct.

Keroro started crying. "My best friend just died and I almost lost you too! I don't know what I would have done if you disappeared, Tamama. I was so worried." He held Tamama tighter.

Tamama awkwardly put his hands on Keroro's back to pat it. He wasn't quite sure why Keroro was crying. Fuyuki was fine, but he wasn't sure he deserved Keroro's hug. So...He's not mad at me? He was just looking for me?

He felt himself sniffle to. He didn't deserve this. Keroro was too good for him. "WAHHHH!" Tamama started crying and hugged Keroro as well. "I'm so sorry! This is my fault! I don't deserve to have you look for me! I just wanted to help, to try to capture the flyians for you so you didn't have to do anything bad. But you had to clean up my mess!"

"You...Might have done wrong, but you were trying to help so it's not all bad-" Keroro tried to comfort him.

"That's not fully true! I lied!" Tamama sobbed again. "I also just wanted to get that woman out of the way! I didn't care about her! It was just another of my selfish plots! I'm a sinful, selfish creature!" He confessed loudly.

Keroro pat his head trying to calm Tamama down. He knew it was probably a reason like that. Everybody kind of knew Tamama had some jealous issues and did not perhaps make the best decisions when it came to morals concerning Mois. This was honestly kind of expected. "I love you. It's all right." He said simply.

Tamama looked up and wiped away his tears. "You...You love me?" He asked, his voice filled with shock and joy.

"Yeah! I love you the way I love all my platoon members, friends and keronians." Keroro smiled blissfully ignorant.

Tamama just frowned. "...I was so close…So freakin close..." He felt like cursing.

Keroro tugged himself away from Tamama now that Tamama was being more of his normal self and looked okay. "So where are the flyians? The sky no longer looks dark. Did they flee? Although capturing them was the goal I guess it was a pretty huge task. I'm glad everybody's safe though."

Everybody looked at him. "You mean you don't remember, Keroro?" Giroro asked.

"I only remember how god darn tired I am. Honestly I feel like I'm about to collapse." Keroro was holding onto Tamama and Tamama realized that it wasn't fully because he wanted to. It was because he was having problems balancing. "So where did the flyians go?"

"You...You caught them all, Mr. Sergeant." Tamama frowned. How could Keroro not remember any of this? It was really huge.

Keroro looked confused. "Nah. I think I'd remember something like that. Unless...My memory is that bad." He glanced at Dororo.

"It usually is. What's my name?" Dororo asked.

"Domomo?" Keroro suggested.

Dororo sighed in annoyance.

"Ku, ku, ku. This is highly unusual." Kululu looked at Keroro for a moment trying to figure out what was going on. "Not the forgetting about things, that seems very normal for Keroro. He is an idiot after all. But that blast of sheer power...I've never heard of anything like that happening before. Never seen anything like it."

Keroro dropped to the ground, to his knees, very tired.

"Perhaps it's the Keron Star's full power. We do rarely see it being used. And Keroro sure does have a lot of backlogs of it that should have been his. Perhaps all of the Keron star exhibited itself in one huge moment to make up for all those times that it hadn't been used. But it was too much for him and put a fair amount of stress on his body causing him to experience memory loss and tiredness." Kululu immediately came up with a hypothesis.

There was a faint glow that was still fading around the Keron Star. Either way it was something to test later when they all got home to heal and turn the flyians over to Keron.

Keroro wasn't listening to Kululu's hypothesis. Instead he took Tamama's hand and tried to use Tamama as leverage to get up. "Thanks."
"I'm sorry." Tamama apologized again. "For everything."

"I forgive you." Keroro replied. "I'm glad you're okay. I wouldn't want one of my two most important friends to be hurt. You and Fuyuki." Keroro glanced over. "Fuyuki! You're okay!" He noticed.

"Yeah. That's what I've been trying to tell you!" Fuyuki sighed.

"You pretended to die so you could get a new tattoo?" Keroro glanced at his forehead. "That's immature Fuyuki."

Fuyuki sighed. There was no reminding Keroro of what happened. He just laughed and smiled, glad that everyone was okay.

And they all headed away from that hill to go back home and recuperate.

---

They all collapsed inside the Hinata House. But before any of them could properly recuperate a giant Keron ship landed in the backyard in it's designated area- Giroro's tent.

"I just put that up!" Giroro yelled, throwing his hands in the air in irritation.

The doorway opened, and the colonel walked out, his cape flowing behind him. Keroro's father was at his right side and Agugu, a green keronian who seemed to be very young that he was hanging around with was at his left.

"W-what are you doing here? We still have time to catch the flyians. And we're all really really tired...I mean injured." Keroro corrected.

The colonel looked at him. Keroro couldn't read his expression. Keroro tried to keep his eyes on the colonel instead of his father. He didn't really want to face him right now. He didn't want to blurt out a question like 'why didn't you tell me it was all a lie?'

"We wanted to check your progress." The colonel replied.

"Oh. Well no need to worry about that. We caught all of them." Keroro replied. "But we're too tired to transport them right now. A lot of us got hurt in the battle."

The colonel tapped his foot like that was no excuse.

Dororo saw his chance. "I...I could deliver them to the ship for you." He volunteered. "I'm unhurt."

"I'm uninjured as well!" Giroro reminded. A slab of wood fell on him from the ceiling. "Never mind." Just his luck.

Dororo tried not to look guilty. I've got to do this. I've got to secretly free them. I can not let Keron get them. They will use their power to hurt other races and the cycle of hatred will only continue.

"All right, Dororo!" Keroro replied. "I guess you can deliver them to the ship. We trust you after all."

Dororo nodded and headed off.

---

He approached the cages on the hill. There must have been hundreds of them lined up. They weren't trying to get out though, they all looked so frightened.

Dororo picked one up. "I would like to speak to you. As equals."

"What do you want keronian? Came to rub it in our face that we're going to be eaten? Ask why we did something so horrible to your pekoponian friend? We were only scared. Scared for our children and our friends and family. We knew you were powerful and did not want him to get us." They were clearly speaking of Keroro.

Dororo sighed. "Listen, I don't like what you did to Fuyuki or Mois. You've clearly done some bad things. But if I let Keron get you, worse will happen. I've seen the enemy I know. My planet. I was an assassin for them. And they're downright evil. If they gain the power to advance into a more powerful species and invade more they will enslave innocent races. At least when you take others energy you give something in return. Protection from aliens, correct?"

"Wait...Are you turning traitor? Are you coming to our side?" The flyians were confused. They had never seen a keronian do this, try to sympathize with their plight.

"No species that is sentient deserves to be cattle to another. To just be raised and bred to be eaten. You are as intelligent as us. We would be dooming you to a cruel life." Dororo told them. "And no I'm not coming to your side. I want to cut a deal."

The flyians sounded interested. "We...We will listen to you. You sound...Reasonable."

"Get off of Pekopon. Do not eat the creatures of this planet's lifespan. Leave and I will release you." Dororo instructed.

The flyians thought for a moment. "We agree. Your terms are agreeable. It's clear you care very much for the people of this planet."

Dororo opened a cage door. But oddly enough not all the flyians left. "What are you doing? You've got to go."

"Your plan might be a good one, but it's not a smart one. The keronians will try to follow us throughout the entire universe if all of us go. Not only that but they will assume we are still on Pekopon. Do you really want the planet you love to be torn apart by their gluttony?" They asked.

"N-no..." Dororo hadn't thought about that. He had figured he'd shoulder the responsibility and try to protect Pekopon all on his own.

"Some...Some of us will go to Keron as a distraction. They do not know how large our population is. Only your platoon does. Some amount will feed them for at least a year. And then the rest of us can escape and the keronians will not follow or look." They decided.

"But that is a cruel fate for those of you who have to be sacrifices." Dororo frowned.

"It...It is a fate we must accept. We care about our own. So some of us will be the sacrifices." They spoke.

Dororo gave a reluctant nod. He slowly opened the cage doors as the flyians rearranged themselves and said good bye to their family and friends who were left behind.

And Dororo left with the small amount of cages that would be left behind so he could give them to the colonel.

---

Dororo had succeeded at delivering the flyians. The colonel turned away from the Keroro platoon.

Not all of the Keroro platoon looked happy. They knew that the search for the flyians was finally over, but as soon as the ship left their exile would began. And a lot of them didn't want to go through that or think about it.

"It's too bad that so few were left in the galaxy, but there's not much we can do about it." The colonel sighed. "You still completed the task we assigned of you."

"Just doing our job." Giroro saluted, hoping desperately that the colonel might change his mind that they were all failures.

"You're still being left here." The colonel clarified. "But we will not touch Pekopon. Pekopon is yours." He scanned the Keroro platoon with his eyes. "Thank you, Keroro platoon." He walked back into the ship.

Keroro waited for his father to go follow the colonel. His father instead stared at him.

"Hi...Hi dad...Umm….Sorry about all this..." Keroro looked at the ground. "Can...I still come home to visit you and mom on holidays?"

There was silence.

"You...Aren't disappointed in me are you?" Keroro asked. More silence. "Did...Did you know about this fake invasion plot when I was chosen for it?"

Keroro's father finally spoke, "How'd you succeed? How did you manage to capture them?"

Keroro smiled, and laughed awkwardly rubbing the back of his head, "I don't remember!"

Keroro's father just nodded. For some reason he didn't look all that confused. He walked up to Keroro.

Keroro took a breathe unsure of what was going to happen.

His father reached out as if to pat his son's shoulder or back, but stopped himself. "I'll see you soon….Keroro."

The words sounded so distant. His father was acting so distant.

Did this rift form from the truth of the invasion? What's on his mind? But Keroro didn't get a chance to ask.

Keroro's father just walked into the ship, Agugu following him. And Keroro was left confused.

The door closed behind them and the ship readied itself for blast off.

Agugu looked out the window as some of the Keroro platoon waved good-bye to them. The Demon Sergeant pressed a hand against the window and looked down at his son.

"Why didn't you say anything more to him?" Agugu asked. "Isn't he your son?" He pointed out. "Aren't you going to miss him? Isn't exiling him a big deal?"

The demon sergeant sighed. "It's not the last we've seen of Keroro." He paused. "It's never the end of Keroro." He sighed. "Or the last of him."

"Huh?" Agugu didn't understand. Some other mission that the Demon Sergeant has planned for his son?

The ship blasted off.

---

The five keronians were left on Pekopon. As the ship above them disappeared from view it finally set in that their jobs in the military were over. That they were not a part of Keron any longer.

"So...I guess we have to start a new life on Pekopon now." Keroro tried to be easy going about it.

Giroro gave a small nod. "A new life on this planet away from Keron."

"Well, maybe this is for the best! I can unpack all my new traumas about seeing my best friend die by taking some nice old me time!" Keroro tried to be positive. "That and there's a whole lot of toys on Pekopon! Oooh. Nobody can get mad at me for playing with toys instead of doing work. I'm not in the military any longer!" There were some good things about this circumstance. "I'm free from responsibility!" Keroro cheered.

"I'm just happy I'm with Mr. Sergeant." Tamama smiled. "I don't care that I'm not on Keron anymore." Tamama nuzzled up to Keroro.

"I...I guess it's not too bad being stuck on this planet..." Giroro blushed and glanced over at Natsumi. "An...An entire future with Natsumi to plan." He drooled, lovesick as usual. "I'm going to live on the same planet as Natsumi." He started fantasizing about the possible futures.

"I'm not bothered in the least bit. I always wanted to stay on Pekopon. I love this planet." Dororo smiled. "It was my plan to eventually live here.

"Ku, ku, ku. I wonder how quickly I can abandon this mud ball." Kululu schemed. "Mois, when's your next attempt on this planet's life going to be?"

Angol Mois was lying on the couch. She was injured but healing. "I don't know..." She frowned. "Maybe next week? How does Monday sound." She suggested casually. "I'm not in a very good mood with this planet at the moment since you know, I almost got murdered, but I'm pretty injured. That and I have other things to do right now."

"What other things?" Kululu asked.

"Like talking to you? I mean don't we have a lot to talk about? I heard what you said about me-" Angol Mois pointed out.

"Ah! Ah! I see! You're so injured that you're experiencing delusions! Ummm! Maybe you shouldn't talk and just rest. Rest is best for you!" Kululu desperately tried to play off his love confession. He was blushing quite a bit and making very bad excuses though. "I don't know what you heard, because it definitely didn't come out of my mouth, so I have literally no idea what you're talking about." Kululu was not coming up with very good excuses.

"You said you were in love with me? You don't remember that?" Angol Mois reminded. She looked like she was just trying to be helpful if he had forgotten.

Kululu just stared at the ground. "You...You didn't have to say it out loud." He was blushing a lot. He looked desperately around at the platoon. "Listen, she was dying. I- I wanted to shock her into waking up. So I m-might have said some weird things." It was another bad excuse.

Giroro snickered a bit. Kululu deserved it.

Angol Mois sighed and reached over to hold Kululu's hand. "I love you a whole lot too, Kululu. You're my best friend and someone I should have realized I loved a long time ago."

Kululu just blushed but he didn't move away. He moved a little closer since she was injured and all. Close contact was supposed to make someone feel better when they were hurt.

"Stupid that woman." Tamama cursed under his breath, "She doesn't say that she loves someone in the way she loves all her friends. Even she knows better than that." He was still bitter that he hadn't gotten a love confession.

Keroro didn't hear him. He tried not to look at Angol Mois and Kululu like they were weird. What had happened in that rain forest? No wonder Saburo had cried. He would have cried too.

"There are a lot of new futures in the horizon for our platoon." Keroro agreed.

And everybody, deep down agreed. They all felt like there was something there around them that was more important to them than Keron.

---

Sometimes I worry that I'm making Tamama do too harsh of things and too selfish. Then I remember that one awful manga chapter and what he tried to do to Angol Mois. Let's just embrace the anime adaptation of that episode over the manga counterpart where he forces her to do tongue twisters instead.

Kululu's device that locates Mois's location is from the same episode.

Giroro's "all things are living gun" is from the episode where he turns into a human to dance with Natsumi at Momoka's ball.

Also, I feel bad for what Fuyuki has to go through in this fic.

Sorry that I'm super bad at writing fight scenes. It is my weakness.

Anyway, please review!