As fate would have it, hundreds of miles away and on that very same night, another Urashima was answering several pointed questions over dinner. The situation, while far less confrontational, was still unbearably uncomfortable for Keitaro.

"So, Keitaro-san… when can I expect Grandchildren? Hmm?" asked Tsuruko playfully as she leaned forward, elbows on the table and head in her hands. She probably hadn't intended it, but in the process she had given the normally shy kanrinin-san more than an eyeful of his mother-in-law.

"T-T-Tsuruko-san!" stammered Keitaro as he went three different shades of scarlet. The question alone was enough to send the faint hearted manager into spasms of embarrassment, but Tsuruko wasn't making it easy on him by leaning forward the way she was… he swiftly averted his eyes from the elder swordswoman's exposed cleavage and briefly considered that perhaps Tsuruko was a bit more flirtatious than a married woman should be, particularly towards her daughter's husband.

"That's a little… it's a little…" he tried to explain, only to have his meagre excuses cut off by a lilting laugh.

"Relax… I'm in no hurry and besides, do I look like I'm ready to be a grandmother?" she said with a coy look on her face.

Keitaro rubbed his eyes under his glasses. He was still getting used to how Tsuruko could so easily go from serious to jovial and then back in the blink of an eye. If he didn't know better, he'd almost think that she had some sort of mania. Actually, maybe she did – all things considered, with what Keitaro had heard today, he'd be surprised if Tsuruko didn't have a screw or two loose. Not that he'd ever say that to her of course – he valued his head where it was.

"You're almost as much fun to tease as my husband," she joked as she leaned backwards from the table. Her hand held a simple clay cup that she brought to her mouth. Keitaro watched her take a slow and languid drink as he wondered what could possibly be in it – it certainly wasn't the barely tea that he'd been served.

"Ah, speaking of your husband," Keitaro looked around nervously, "I don't believe I've ever met… um… Aoyama-san?"

Tsuruko sputtered, her drink spraying from the corners of her mouth as a deep and hearty laugh made its way up from her diaphragm, eventually erupting on her lips.

"Keima," she said once she had recovered sufficiently. "His name is Keima, and he's not an Aoyama. You should be smart enough to figure that out Todaisei-kun."

Keitaro rolled his eyes. "Don't put too much faith in that… it did take me four times to get in."

After dabbing away the remnants of her drink, Tsuruko responded lightly – "I married into my husband's family. Isn't it obvious that's how Motoko-han…"

Keitaro, his brain actually working for a change, finished the sentence, "… became the heir to the Shinmei-ryū."

Tsuruko's face clouded, but only for a moment – the slight grimace that betrayed her inner thoughts was swiftly replaced by her normal sly smile. Keitaro, momentarily overcoming his characteristic denseness, was able to read the mood and changed the subject.

"So where is… Keima-san tonight?" he asked.

"Away on work," Tsuruko responded. "Although… he did want to meet you, so it's unfortunate in a way."

"How so?" asked Keitaro as he moved a helping of black cod to his mouth – dinner was surprisingly good, unexpectedly Tsuruko rivalled or even surpassed Shinobu when it came to cooking. Certainly it was a welcome trait for a married woman, but not one that she had passed down to Motoko.

"Well, he said…" Tsuruko sat up ram-rod straight and squared her jaw, her voice going several octaves lower.

"I want to meet this damn pervert and give him a piece of my mind!"

Keitaro nearly choked on his fish, his chopsticks flying up in the air as he grabbed his own throat.

"S-s-sorry!" he stammered as he wiped his mouth. He was a heartbeat away from going into a complete dogeza and begging forgiveness before a non-present Keima-san before Tsuruko clapped her hands together and brought him back to his senses.

"Don't take it personally – my husband is very conservative and his only knowledge of you is from the letters that Motoko-han would send home from time to time. It's funny, those two are very much alike – maybe that's why they don't get along so well."

Keitaro, still struggling to dislodge an errant piece of cod from his lungs, watched with interest as Tsuruko left her seat and crossed the room towards a table. With a simple movement she opened a drawer and retrieved a stack of letters bundled in red string.

"I've saved every one," she said cheerily as she sauntered back to the table, sitting down and placing the letters before Keitaro.

Finally recovered, Keitaro stared at the pile of paper in front of him. Even if Tsuruko seemed to be egging him on, he wondered if it was really okay for him too look at the letters that Motoko had written to her family. He brought his attention to Tsuruko, who only replied with a silent smile and a raised eyebrow – the implication was clear, "What are you going to do?"

Hesitating, but only for a moment, Keitaro slowly slid the letters back across the table.

"Interesting," said Tsuruko as she looked fondly at Keitaro.

"Why did you do that Keitaro-san?"

Keitaro tried to order his thoughts, then swallowed and spoke softly, "I don't think Motoko-chan would like me reading her private letters…"

"Even when those letters are mostly about you?" asked Tsuruko with a grin.

Keitaro's eyes went wide. Those letters… they were about him? His mind raced and recalled the previous year spent at the Hinata – walking in on Motoko in the hotsprings, walking in on Motoko in the toilet, walking in on Motoko in her room, all of course featuring her in various states of nudity or undress. Then of course there was the falling and tripping – landing on Motoko, grabbing Motoko, pulling down her pants from time to time...

Tsuruko found the look of abject terror on Keitaro's face highly amusing. The poor boy had probably just seen his life flash before his eyes and she was tempted to play with him a little bit, but compassion won out over her natural inclination for teasing. After all, regardless of what choice Keitaro made about his future with Motoko, the fact remained that the two would still be married. Not that she needed such a justification to engage in meddling, but certainly it was a valid excuse to continue.

"Oh, it's not all bad…" she said as she picked up the first couple of letters.

"Ahem," she began, "Onee-sama I cannot stress enough how dangerous it has become at the Hinata-sou. The vile lecherous pervert of a kanrinin stalks us constantly, peeping on us in the baths, groping us or otherwise attempting to molest our bodies. He claims they are merely accidents, but I'm not fool – I can tell he's nothing more than a lazy pervert who should be eradicated from the face of the earth!"

Keitaro blanched. Every sentence that Tsuruko uttered was like an arrow flying right to his heart and a reminder of his not-to-distant past with Motoko. After how well the two of them had been getting along, after how much she had out right flirted with him, it was a harsh dose of reality shoved directly in his face.

Feeling somewhat queasy, Keitaro started to launch into one of his patented apology-sprees, only to be silenced when Tsuruko held up a letter in front of his face.

"Let's see… if I remember correctly, it took about fifteen letters for you to go from hentai-san to Urashima-san," she chuckled as she flipped through the pages before her.

"Yes, this is the one that first sparked my interest."

She cleared her throat and continued reading from another letter.

"Today I suffered a humiliating defeat. Once again, for what seems like the hundredth time, that pervert Urashima spied upon me whilst I was changing my clothing."

As Tsuruko read, Keitaro at least had the decency to look ashamed.

"Outraged at his constant intrusions into my privacy and his utter lack of decency, I challenged him on the spot to a duel. In my haste I set out the terms – if I was to win, then Urashima would have to endure special training in our school arts, if I was to lose, then I would do whatever he asked."

Keitaro remembered that exchange vividly. It was less a discussion of terms and more like Motoko barking at him and then rushing him with a sword. If it hadn't been for Su-chan thrusting a baseball bat into his hand (and where did she get that from?) he probably would have been immediately blasted through the roof.

"In retrospect, I should have taken more care. I did not expect to lose, nor did I expect Urashima to execute a perfect Shinken Shirahadori, catching my blade with his bare hands."

That was more of an accident than anything. Keitaro had been trying to parry with the baseball bat, but Motoko's sword shattered it into pieces – in the aftermath, somehow, almost miraculously, Keitaro found himself holding Motoko's sword by the blade.

"With my technique defeated, I threw myself on the ground before Urashima. In my despair I anticipated the worst."

Tsuruko gave Keitaro a leer and a grin as she delivered that last line. Without it being spoken, both of them knew what Motoko meant.

"Without going into details, the worst did not happen. It seems that Urashima has a shred of decency… we were able to come to a resolution. Still, while I must begrudgingly admit that he showed me some small degree of honour that day, he still must reflect upon his actions and correct his behaviour."

What Motoko didn't mention is that Keitaro, at the insistence of Kitsune, had asked Motoko to show her "feminine side". The girls had quite a bit of fun dressing Motoko up, but ultimately she fled in tears and embarrassment from the treatment. The two of them had managed to come to an agreement of sorts, or as Motoko had roughly said – if it was okay for her to be an unfeminine girl, then it was probably okay for Keitaro to be an unmasculine man.

It wasn't particularly flattering to Keitaro, but when faced with Motoko's sword, he'd take whatever he could get.

Tsuruko placed the letter face down on the table and smiled softly.

"Keitaro-san, this letter really surprised me. Do you know why?" she asked.

Keitaro pondered for a moment and then ventured a guess, "Uh… Motoko lost a duel?"

Placing a finger under her chin, Tsuruko seemed to consider his answer, but then shook her head.

"No, it was something else. Let me ask you another question – What does Motoko-han hate?"

This was a far easier question for Keitaro - he answered immediately, "Men and turtles."

"Ignoring turtles for now…" Tsuruko had a wicked gleam in her eye before continuing to speak.

"Motoko-han doesn't really hate men. That's ludicrous – she has many male relatives, even my husband whom she doesn't get along with, she doesn't really hate. Her feelings are much more complex than that and actually involve me more than him."

Keitaro tried to follow along, but the confusion on his face was evident. Tsuruko sighed and continued.

"She hates weak men. She hates lazy men. She hates men who are frivolous, who lie, who are cowardly and who act without honour."

"Hey!" Keitaro sputtered, feeling as if Tsuruko's diatribe was directed at him, "I might not be particularly brave… but isn't that a little much?"

Tsuruko waved Keitaro off with her hands; it was obvious she was trying to make a point.

"When I read this letter, I noticed two things immediately – first, rather than attempting to expel you from the Hinata, she merely wanted to train you. Secondly, her loss condition - doing anything you ask? Well, that's either a rather bold offer for Motoko-han, or it demonstrates an unusual amount of trust in your good nature."

Keitaro's mouth hung open. At the time, everything had happened so fast that he hadn't really contemplated the "terms" of that little duel. Hell, he had been surprised that he had even won, but now that Tsuruko brought it out into the open he had to admit that she was on to something – he was just too dense to figure it out.

"I can't quite see what you're getting at…" he said with honest apology in his voice.

Tsuruko rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath, "Kami… Motoko-han wasn't exaggerating, you are dense."

Keitaro sighed. He knew it was true, but he didn't like hearing it all the time.

"Just tell me straight please?" he asked, his voice dripping with resignation.

"It's getting late and you have an early train to catch tomorrow, so I'll just leave you with this thought – Motoko-han is sometimes very rigid in her thinking. She's the kind of girl that can't cope if her heart and her head are at odds."

Tsuruko rose from the table, still talking as she gestured for Keitaro to follow her, "Imagine what kind of restrictions her way of life puts on her Keitaro-san."

What Tsuruko was saying wasn't anything particularly new, or at least not something that Keitaro was unaware of in a general sense. If you thought of the words "strict", "rigid" and "disciplined", the name and face of Aoyama Motoko was quickly conjured into ones mind. In a very real way she was an anachronism in modern day Japan, and not just because she carried a sword. No, to Motoko obligation, duty and honour were not just words; they were a way of life.

"I… I imagine it can't be easy, can it? She must have things that she wants to do, but can't…" Keitaro mused as he followed Tsuruko down the hall.

Tsuruko nodded as the two of them turned a corner, coming to a long hall of doors – obviously living quarters of some kind.

"You can stay in this room," she said with a gesture. "Appropriately enough, it was Motoko-han's."

Keitaro felt a little uncomfortable at the idea of sleeping in Motoko's room, but quickly banished the thought. He reminded himself, somewhat forcefully, that these days, even he did sleep in the same bed with her.

"T-thanks," replied Keitaro.

Tsuruko smiled peacefully and bowed

"Good night Keitaro-san, and think about what we've spoken about today. All of it, even the small parts, are very important."

With that, Tsuruko bade Keitaro good night and retreated down the hall to her own room, leaving the befuddled man to reflect on the events of the day. And what a day it had been – revelation upon revelation had stacked up before him like an insurmountable wall of obstacles that he was sure his less-than-stellar intellect was ill equipped to handle. While he knew he wasn't as dumb as Narusegawa claimed he was, he also knew that he wasn't a genius and from where he was sitting it seemed like genius would be what was required to tackle any one of the myriad problems looming in his near future.

"Hmm, this room looks very much like her room back at the Hinata."

Both rooms were spacious, about eight to ten tatami mats in dimension, slightly larger than Keitaro's room in his old home and both equally as sparse with decorations. Motoko evidently had been living a Spartan lifestyle long before she had arrived at the Hinata-sou. In fact, if it wasn't for a few scattered photographs and a bookcase crammed with paperbacks, there'd be no evidence that anyone – let along a young girl had once called this room home.

Keitaro moved to the closet and retrieved a futon, laying it down alongside one of the book shelfs. As he lay down, his eyes wandered across the spines of the books. Many of them were well worn and creased, showing that their owner had read them many times. He idly picked one up at random and started reading the back cover.

"Huh… I guess she liked romance novels even before she lost her memory."

He carefully put the book back in its place and considered what Tsuruko had been trying to tell him. Even he wasn't dense enough to not notice that she had been hinting that on some level Motoko had, if not outright liked him, at least accepted certain parts of him. Accepted the fact that he wasn't really a pervert and wouldn't do anything to her if she had lost. In fact, if it hadn't been for Kitsune egging him on to do something "embarrassing", he probably would have let the whole incident pass without comment.

"But really… she did look cute in that miniskirt."

He had said so at the time, but it only seemed to further embarrass the kendo-girl. Keitaro had assumed it was because she hated such things, but now after seeing another side of her and after his conversation with Tsuruko, he was wondering if that had really been the case.

"Maybe she didn't hate them at all, but she didn't feel like she could have them?"

His eyes wandered across Motoko's collection of novels and he softly chuckled to himself. When he had first caught Motoko reading one in the hospital, it had almost completely destroyed his image of her. At the time, he supposed, he had written it off as a change in her personality due to her memory loss, but now when confronted with a literal bookshelf of evidence to the contrary, he knew that this wasn't the case. In fact, if anything had changed, perhaps it was just that she didn't feel the need to hide her choice in literature from others – likely because it never occurred to her that there was something "wrong" with it.

Was this what Tsuruko was trying to tell him? Is this what he should be reflecting on? Keitaro knew that he had a dizzying array of choices in front of him – the ability (perhaps?) to restore Motoko to her former self being the one at the forefront of his mind, but even so what came after that was equally as important. Regardless of if Motoko could walk again, regardless of if she regained her memories, the fact would still remain that she would be expelled from her family and married to Keitaro. This wasn't something that could be solved with a wave of the hand, or as the case may be, with a "magic pill" given to him by Tsuruko.

Keitaro pulled the blanket of the futon up to his neck and closed his eyes. He noticed, almost absent mindedly, that the room around him had somehow managed to retain a trace of Motoko's scent and despite himself, he found it oddly comforting.

"There are two paths ahead of me; at least I can clearly see that now. But which one? Which one do I choose, and WHY?"

Tsuruko had presented him with an amazing opportunity, but it was one that could potentially cause as many problems as it fixed, and even then both outcomes had their own risks and issues that he needed to somehow solve.

First there was the current Motoko who relied on him and trusted him. She was a girl that Keitaro knew he could build a relationship with if he could just banish his remaining doubts, especially his lingering affection for Narusegawa.

Secondly, there was the "old Motoko" – the girl that frequently accused him of harassment and perversion and punished him accordingly. Strangely enough, those were happier memories than the last one he had of her – teetering over the precipice of a cliff, despair and resignation writ large on her face and a hairs breadth from suicide.

He tossed and turned as he reflected on the difficulty of this choice. If he was to restore Motoko, to restore her memories, then would she return to that previous state? Was there anything that he, a simple and foolish man, could do to prevent her despair from tearing her apart? And most importantly, could he save her with just his half-hearted feelings?

"I… do love her. I love all the girls in their own ways, but am I in love with her?"

He laid there for long hours, struggling with these thoughts, but dawn found him only tired and still confused as to what to do.

LH-LH-LH-LH

Motoko, clad in her nightshirt and sitting in her chair, ran a large brush through her hair and stared at herself in the vanity mirror. It was an old piece that Haruka had moved up from storage for no other reason than she thought that a bedroom was incomplete without one and Motoko had found it lovely even if it did strike her as odd that she didn't have one of her own.

Of course, she didn't have a lot of things that she considered a grown woman should have and she often wondered why she had lived such a sparse and Spartan lifestyle.

"Who am I? What was I like?" she thought as she stared at her own reflection, her eyes not betraying a hint of an answer.

It was a question that she had asked herself countless times over the last couple of months and after recent revelations – both Mutsumi's description of her previous relationship with Keitaro, as well as Haruka's assessment of the relationship between him and Narusegawa… she was starting to wonder if she had really wanted to know all that bad.

Maybe, as they say, ignorance was indeed bliss.

The other residents had tried to hide much from her – that was clear now, but it was also something that they had done a poor job of concealing. How could she not know that something was wrong when she would catch them with strange looks on their faces when they interacted with her or when they thought she wasn't watching. It was clear what they were saying, even if it wasn't vocalized – "Who are you and where did my friend go?"

She put down the hairbrush and wheeled herself over to the side of the bed she shared with her husband. With a brief struggle she clambered onto the western styled mattress and situated herself for sleep, even though she suspected that such slumber would not come easy tonight.

She remembered what Morita-sensei had asked her – if she wanted to remember her own past, and concluded that even now she couldn't decide.

"What happens to me, the me that exists now, if I remember the me that came before?"

She shuddered involuntarily at the thought. In her mind, it seemed almost akin to dying. What if she woke up one morning a completely different person, then what would happen to the feelings that she had now? Would they carry on? Would they change?

Mutsumi had been very descriptive about Motoko's and Keitaro's previous relationship, to the point where several times Motoko had felt ill at how the actions of her past self were so dramatically out of line with her current feelings. It was like being put into an amusement park ride and spun at full tilt until you couldn't tell which way was up or down.

She ran her fingers over her hand, feeling the outline of a simple golden band. Its partner was hundreds of kilometres away, but Motoko couldn't help but wonder if that distance was even further than she imagined. Despite how she felt now, could it all be possible that Keitaro didn't feel the same? What was the distance between their hearts?

"What if… what if… he still loves her?"

If this was the case, if Keitaro loved another, then wouldn't it be better if she could stop loving him? Perhaps if she got her memory back, then this would be the inevitable outcome. If the girl she was before returned, then wouldn't it stand to reason that the feelings she had now would change?

Indeed, it would be like death of a sort, but only of her love.

Involuntarily, Motoko let out a sob, a single tear drifting slowly down her cheek.

She knew now that she had the answer to Morita-sensei's question, but unfortunately it had come too late to save her from the pain currently festering in her heart.

"Tomorrow", she whispered to herself as she wiped her eyes, "Tomorrow I'll bare myself to Keitaro-san… Tomorrow we will finally talk as we should have all along."

LH-LH-LH-LH-LH

A/N: Another chapter completed and we're getting one step closer to the turning point of the story. I felt like I really needed to put some questions in this story into a moral context in order to relate to the readers how serious the characters (particularly Keitaro and Motoko) are taking into consideration their different problems.

For Motoko, her problem really hasn't changed from the beginning of the story – she's conflicted primarily over her place in the world and what it means, but it's been complicated by the fact that she believes she's found love and is afraid to lose it – even if it's a false love and of course an overwhelming concern of what it means to lose ones self or personality.

Keitaro on the other hand holds much of Motoko's fate in his hands and is struggling with what is the morally correct thing to do as well as how he wants to deal with their relationship. To him, I imagine the lure of the current Motoko's affections is strong, but he struggles with the feeling that she doesn't really mean it, because the old Motoko clearly didn't. (Well, maybe not so clearly).

These questions I think will start to be resolved in the next couple of chapters, setting a course towards the end of the fiction.

With that in mind, I want to thank everyone who's read and supported this story for so long. I was quite surprised today to see that this story has so many favourites on it and it really means a lot to me since it's actually surpassed the count on several stories that I think are much superior to my own or have served as my own inspiration. Thank you all so much for the votes of confidence!

Cheers,

QC