Ch. 14: Can We Live Happily Ever After?

Shortly after the last of Deep Blue's cries die away to silence, Ichigo starts to hear the roars of thunder instead. Then there is the smell of the rain starting to fall on the Mew Mew Lands. It didn't take long at all till it started to pour. It came faster than she expected after the little lightning from before, and in great amounts too. The rain will cool off the fires and then wash away all of the remnants left of the battle. Then it will heal the earth. Ichigo takes a moment to lean against the glass wall and stare up at the ceiling.

Deep Blue is dead. The Mew Mew Land is freed from his grasps and Sakura's death has been avenged. It's over, but…

"Should the Mew Mew Land's new queen have such a long face?"

The panther-being looks at the doorway to this room and sees Zakuro looking at her with gentle eyes with an equal tender smile.

"Zakuro," Ichigo calls before getting up and then running towards the older woman. She runs into the wolf-being's arms and hugs her for all that she's worth.

"You've grown up to become so strong, Ichigo."

"I've missed you."

Zakuro pulls Ichigo back a little and raises her hand under the girl's chin. "You're just as beautiful as your mother. She'll be so proud, as I am." Then pulling away a little more, she grasps Ichigo's hands and tells her, "You should come downstairs. There are a lot of people who want to see you."

Ichigo knows she's right so she nods. Seeing that, Zakuro releases her hands and then steps back so she could curtsy. That startled Ichigo but when she opened her mouth tell her not to do that, Zakuro raised her hand to stop her. She knew the young queen would say something. Once she stood back up straight, she leads Ichigo out of the room and down the stairs. She's a bit sheepish at first but with a deep breath, Ichigo was able to climb that first step.

The two of them walk down the stairs and soon, they start to hear familiar voices.

"I said I was sorry, alright!" That was Kisshu!

Then they hear Mint yelling, "You gave all of us a near heart attack from your little stunt and all you have to say for yourself is 'I'm sorry'?! I should shoot your ass!"

"Mint-san, please calm down." Sounds like Keiichiro is trying to play peace-keeper.

After climbing a few more stairs, Ichigo and Zakuro can see what's going on – Kisshu hiding behind Keiichiro from an angry Ryou and a furious Mint. The other animal beings and the other aliens are there and they don't look too pleased with Kisshu either. Lettuce, Pudding, Tart and Sardon(or rather Taruto and Pai) are there, too. But while the brothers are watching the scene demused, the girls are looking at them with hopeful but still nervous eyes.

Ryou tells Keiichiro, "I wouldn't tell her to calm, dad. It'll only make her angrier." Then he crosses his arms in front of his chest. "You're also in just as much trouble as he is. I don't care if mom's forgiven you because it was your 'sacred duty' as a soothsayer. You were out of the picture for eleven years because of some voices in the wind from dead kings! And now you come back, smiling like everything's all fine and dangy?! Wipe that off!"

Looks more like Kisshu is using Keiichiro as a sacrifice to the couple's wrath.

Then said-alien sticks his head out from behind the older man and tries to defend, "Now I know you guys are upset but if you look at it at the long run, everything worked out in the end, didn't it? All according to plan." That didn't help at all.

"This was one sick, twisted plan of yours!" both Ryou and Mint snap, causing Kisshu to hide again.

Keiichiro whispers to him, "If it's all the same to you, I would like to live long enough to see my future grandchild." Kisshu blinks in surprise when he heard that while Ryou has a face of 'how do you know?'

"Grandchild?" he asks, peeking out again. "Mint, are you with child?"

"Do not change the subject on us, mister!"

Ack-hem

Everyone looks up from the obviously loud cough-clearing and all eyes land on Zakuro and Ichigo – who is still staring at Kisshu despite what she just heard. When the said-green haired cyniclon sees her looking at him, he looks nervous when he smiles.

"K-Koneko-chan, hi," he greets. "You did it! We won."

Hearing him say that, Ichigo gets over her shock. Her teeth grit together and she tightly grips her fists in the anger that starts to rise, again. She doesn't transform but she sprints into a run on all fours. Seeing her coming, Kisshu knows what's coming.

"I probably deserve this…"

Then Ichigo pounces on him once she was close. The two of them go tumbling a few ways that almost everyone is watching in surprise eyes for. They go rolling for a little bit and the end result is Kisshu pinning Ichigo.

Quickly, Kisshu swears, "I wasn't trying!" That only made Ichigo more irritated. For Ryou and Mint, it looked like things haven't changed.

"Tell me the truth! Were you pretending this whole time?!" Ichigo questions. Oh crap…

"A-Ah, funny you should ask that…" Wrong response, Kisshu.

Then Taruto answers for him, "He was," sounding bored.

Pai adds, "After invading the castle, he came to us first and removed our earrings. His plan was to give us a head-start on regaining back our free-will and consciousness. After he disrupted the circuit in the device to make sure it stays broken, he gave it back and then faced Deep Blue."

And Keiichiro finishes, "However, he knew he couldn't defeat him by himself so he asked his brothers to remove the earring so he could do the same damage to it as well. Kisshu-san knew that if he got caught, he would get a replacement earring for Deep Blue to control him again. The rest of the plan was waiting for you to come back home and take back the throne while he gets close to finish Deep Blue himself, if he had to."

Almost everyone who didn't know this blinks in total surprise. It sounded like Kisshu really thought things through with this. However, that very alien glares at the three people for spilling the beans like that. "Did I need your help explaining what I did?"

They all answered, "You looked like you needed it."

Then Ichigo grabs his collar and recaptures his attention when she pulls Kisshu down to face her enraged eyes. "What the hell were you thinking, you dumbass alien?!"

Then the unexpected happens. Ichigo grabs his head and pulls him down further so her lips could smash against his. No one anticipated this while Kisshu's eyes are as wide as rain puddles. It was a short kiss and the panther-being wraps her arms around him right after. "You stupid alien! Don't ever scare me like that again! I thought…I lost you again…" She holds onto him so tightly, some people thought Ichigo was going to crush him. But hearing her words and feeling this strong grip, guilt appears on Kisshu's face before he risks hugging her back.

"I'm sorry, Ichigo. I didn't mean to hurt you like that again." His words sounded so soft and warm that it became hard for her to stay angry with him. Then he whispers in her ear, "Hey, I love you too, always." Now it's definitely hard.

Ichigo softly smiles in response. "I know." She pulls back and cups his cheek before asking, "Can we live happily ever after now?" He smiles at her silly question.

"Anything you want, koneko-chan." Then he leans in to kiss her – both of their eyes closed and Ichigo smiling before their lips could meet again.

Whack

"Ow!" both Ichigo and Kisshu yelp, holding their aching heads. They look to up to who interrupted them and Keiichiro is by their side, still smiling.

"What the hell is it with you and that stick?!" Kisshu snaps. "You want me to have enough brain damage to be confused as you?"

"How about you two save that for later? A queen is needed to take back the crown." Both Ichigo and Kisshu blink at that. They've completely forgotten about that for a second there, but they glance back at each other again and laugh this time.

Getting up first, Kisshu asks for Ichigo's hand and she gladly gives it to him to help her up. They stare into each other's eyes a little longer before he eventually lifts her hand up to kiss and then he bows. Like with Zakuro, Ichigo was going to say something but Keiichiro lightly taps the back of her head to be quiet. She looks at him in an annoyed way and he mouths, "Later." Then he does the same – minus the 'kissing hand' bit.

Still sheepish, Ichigo calms her nerves again and walks pass them to the others. The closest people to her as she approaches are Pudding and Lettuce. Once she's close, the young monkey-girl rushes to her first and hugs her. Ichigo hugs her back and Pudding breaks it shortly afterwards. Then Lettuce does the same and they both sweetly hug each other. The fish maiden looks like she's about to cry and it almost makes Ichigo want to cry, too. Instead, she opens up the hug a little and opens her arms to call Pudding back. She obliged.

Ichigo tells them, "I never would have done this without you guys." Lettuce starts to cry from her words and Pudding's smile is definitely beaming with happiness right now.

After their group-hug ends, it's Mint's turn. Once Ichigo was free, she runs to her and hugs her as well. "You owe me a big explanation later," she says, giving the new cat queen another squeeze. Then before Ichigo could hug her back, Mint breaks it and takes a few steps back to curtsy.

Then Ryou steps forward and he formally bows. Looking at him beside Mint, Ichigo thinks, 'And you owe me an explanation to this, Mint.' But she rolls her eyes and hugs Ryou. She hugged everyone else, he deserves one too.

Seeing this, Keiichiro sticks his staff out in front of Kisshu. The cyniclon gives him a questioning look and the baboon gives him the eye to not be jealous. 'You think I'm that low?' Kisshu's face asks in response.

Then finally, it's Zakuro again. Ichigo approaches her first this time and the wolf woman cups her face so she could kiss her forehead.

Zakuro tells her, "It's time, my dear."

Ichigo nods. "Uh-huh." She turns to the balcony. The other animal beings and aliens bow down and clear a way for her to walk. Ichigo nods at all her subjects and starts walking to the open balcony.

The rain is still pouring outside but she doesn't mind. The water drenches her clothes in no time as she steps outside and goes to the edge. She places her hands on the stone rail and looks out at her kingdom. Yes, it looks dead but the rain will heal and soon the other animals will come back and they can have food again. There will be balance to the land once again. Ichigo looks up at the sky and one hole in the clouded sky appears as it moves to hover over her. Ichigo sees the night sky with the stars and in the wind, she can hear a voice – her mother's

'Remember who you are, my child.'

Ichigo looks back at her land and then prepares herself. She takes in a deep breath and roars into the night sky. Shortly after her, Zakuro howls and Ryou roars as well. Mint makes her bird calls and Pudding and Keiichiro make their monkey sounds as the other animal beings started to cry out; all but Lettuce and the aliens. She's a fish so she cannot cry out to the night but she can shed tears of joy as the aliens just cheer, hug, and cry.

Then she feels a hand on her shoulder.

Lettuce looks up to the side and Pai had approached her. "Please allow me time and I'll remember you," he tells her, sounding so sincere despite the surrounding noise. "You must be precious to me, too." More tears overflow from her eyes and she no longer cared. She wraps her arms around his chest and she can feel him tensing in surprise.

"I've missed you so much, Pai-san."

Her words and her touch bring a comforting warmth to his heart. Pai hugs her back and lets her cry as much as she wants.

As for Pudding, she stopped her monkey calls when she saw Pai and Lettuce together beside her. Looking behind her, she sees Taruto not looking at the new queen but at her. He didn't expect her to look and awkwardly waves. She didn't care either.

"Taru-Taru!" She runs to him at top speed and jumps him to the ground.

"Whoa!" he yelps when they fell.

On the floor, Pudding is laughing. Don't ask her why. She just felt like laughing at that moment. However, Taruto wanted to ask her, annoyed, why she's laughing but he doesn't. For some reason when he sees her happy face, he didn't have the heart to tell her to stop. Don't ask him, either. He doesn't have an answer but something tells him he will later, when he remembers her – which he has no doubt about.

Ichigo roars again and this time, her roar echoes out throughout the entire Mew Mew land. After the second time, she turns around and her eyes find Kisshu. With a smile full of all the love she has for him, she offers her hand to him. He's surprise to see that but flies to her without question and hugs her, twirling her around in the process. She giggles from that and everyone watches the two love-birds become engrossed in their own little world in the falling rain.

Kisshu puts her down after a while and then they just stare lovingly into each other's eyes. He uses one hand to go to Ichigo's face and moves aside the strands of hair that dare hide her beauty from him. Then Ichigo couldn't help it. Also using his shoulders as leverage, she quickly tiptoes to kiss his lips. He kisses her back and his arms held her closer to him –never to let her go again.

Looking at them together, everyone can already see it – a bright and shiny future of peace and love for the Mew Mew Land and the circle of life.

The End

A/N: And that's it everyone! –phew- Oh my gosh, I am finally DONE! This story is way overdue. Now in a few days, I will release the next chapters of my two new stories and then, this is really terrible of me, but my family was watching Pirates of the Caribbean the other day and that brought some old ideas back.

I'm just putting this out there but how's this casting:

Kisshu – Captain Jack Sparrow

Pai – William Turner

Ichigo and Lettuce – Elizabeth Swan

Taruto – Captain Barbosa

Pudding – Jack the monkey

Ryou – James Norington

Keiichiro – Bill Turner

Zakuro – Tildolma

Deep Blue – Davy Jones

*Just to let you guys know, I thought of this long ago before the fourth movie came out. I loved that fourth one but I'm not going to include that. Sorry, On Stranger Tides fans.

Anyway, I would like to thank you all so much for your support in this story and for those who have been so patient with me on finishing this. I will try to do much better with Cat Demon of Notre Dame and My Promise to Keep.

Thank you all again and until next time!