DISCLAIMER AND AUTHOR'S NOTE: Ghost in the Shell is owned by Productio I.G. (I think). Used without permission. I am not making money off this fic. So yes, technically this is a triple crossover, but only lets you combine two.
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Kyo turns around at the stove and smiles as Sei comes into the trailer's kitchen.
Sei puts her hand on his shoulder and starts shaking him gently. 'Kyo?' she says…although her voice sounds different and she has a French accent. 'Kyo? Wake up. Wake-'
"—up," Elise said, gently shaking Kyo's shoulder.
Kyo woke up and reoriented himself: He was sitting in the passenger seat of Elise's car. She had driven him from their townhouse in Paris and parked in front of the restaurant, in a refurbished castle on the outskirts of town. "That's it?" he asked.
"Yes," Elise said as she unfastened her safety belt. "Come on. Poppa is waiting to show you around and introduce you to everyone."
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Kyo came to in a hospital room. There was an IV sticking out of his arm.
His mother was right by the bed. "Kyo?"
"Hey Mom," me said weakly. "What happened?"
"Kyohei…what were you thinking? Your 'classmates' told Miss Hongo what you did, how you went after those girls…."
'With a little prompting from the Patriarch, I bed,' Kyo added to himself.
"…your father and I were worried sick! And then Agent Stark called us to say you had found by the side of the road unconscious with your wallet empty."
"Huh." Kyo didn't remember Meg going for his wallet, so either she'd made it look like a mugging without him being aware of it, or someone else had taken his money while he'd been unconscious.
Elise came and sat on the edge of the bed, smiling down at him. "Hey, how do you feel?"
"Groggy….headache."
"Well," Elsie said, "you are safe now-"
Kyo heard commotion and voices from outside the room. Then the Patriarch and one of his goons was at the foot of the bed. Another man—Kyo guessed it was a doctor—hovered nearby.
Kyo smiled. "Hey, Patriarch. Had a busy day?"
Elise frowned at him. "'Patriarch'?"
"It's a nickname his men have for him," Kyo said, "kind of a term of endearment. Isn't that right…Agent Stark?"
Stark glared at him, then nodded curtly and smiled politely. "Yes, Kyohei, that's right. Now, Elise, Mrs. Tachibana, I'd like you to step outside. I'd like to ask Kyohei some questions-"
Kyo got agitated. "No, I want them to stay. I don't trust you-"
Kyo's Mom soothed, "It's all right-"
A woman's voice interrupted: "She should stay. He has the right to counsel during questioning."
A woman with purple hair in a business shuit came into view. Behind him was a big, muscular man with ocular implants and a light buzz cut.
Stark smiled at the woman. "Ah, Colonel Kusanagi and the redoubtable Batou. What brings the head of Section 9 down from their her ivory tower?"
"Section 9 has been handed this investigation," Kusinagi explained, "and I have decided to take charge of this case personally."
Stark bristled. "I wasn't informed of this, Colonel."
"I just received word from the prime minister, Agent Stark. You can stay on as the American liaison to the our government, but this is primarily a Japanese matter, and Kyo has the right to have his mother present, if he wants her to stay."
Kyo didn't hesitate. "I want her to stay."
"All right." Kusanagi looked at Stark.
Stark and his goon backed away and leaned against the wall.
Kusanagi came forward and said gently, "All right, Kyohei, just tell us what happened."
Kyo shrugged. 'Meg said "tell the truth,"' he thought.
So he told them what had happened. Mention of another universe barely got any raised eyebrows. But describing how Maria had started glowing was more than his mother could take. "Kyohei!" she interrupted. "The Colonel asked you to tell the truth, and now you're making things up? Why are you protecting those bitches after what they did?"
The doctor stepped forward. "He may not be lying, Colonel, Mrs. Tachibana. He may honestly believe what he is saying. As I was explaining earlier, Kyohei's captors appeared to have injected him with some powerful psychoactive drugs. While we don't know what they all were, it's clear they induced some hallucinations and false memories."
Kyo's mom was agitated. "Will he ever get his memory back?"
"Maybe, maybe not," the doctor answered, "although with therapy he should learn to cope with the experience." He turned to Kusanagi and the Patriarch. "No more questioning today."
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As they left the hospital in their car, Stark's goon was behind the wheel. He said, "I can keep surveillance on Tachibana."
"If you think it's worth it," Stark answered.
"You don't?"
"What I think is that Meg and Drago made certain Kyo couldn't give us any useful information, and then cut him loose. The girls got to say a proper goodbye to him—or as close as they can come to that under the circumstances—and they're not going to try and contact him again. Leave him to Kusanagi. If she decides to let him go to France, let her. Meanwhile, I want to talk to Falco. We've wasted enough time with this 'joint investigation.' It's time to take the battle to my former student. And this time will be the last time."
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Kyo spent a couple more days in the hospital. Kusangi questioned him a few more times, but she couldn't coax him out of his story. The last time he saw her, Elise was at the Colonel's elbow, Batou leaning on the doorframe, and the colonel had papers for Kyo to sign.
Kyo asked, "What's this?"
"Your application for a long stay visa," Kusnagi explained. "Your girlfriend can be very persuasive, and the French ambassador owes me a few favors. Not to mention some poker money, but that's another story. You can have your visa within two days, three tops." She put it on the tray table in front of him with a pen. "Sign it."
Kyo looked at it for a long moment, but then he read the look on Elise's face. He signed it.
Kusanagi picked it up and said, "Now let me give you some friendly advice, Kyo: Never, ever, ever, try to contact those girls again. Even if you put aside what happened this time, there's no way any good can come of having accused terrorists in your life. You're lucky they gave you the boot alive. Next time you may not be so lucky. Clear?"
Kyo looked at her for a long moment and said, "All right."
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"Nice speech," Batou said as he and Kusanagi rode the elevator down.
"Huh?"
"The 'stay away from the nasty girls' speech. His mom will sure be happy to hear that. But you saw the look in his eyes. You read the file. You honestly think that's what really happened, that they doped him up and discarded him?"
"Sure looks that way…and even if it's only for appearances, it's a good way to get him out of harm's way, so either way he should stay away from them. I'm more worried about our friend, the 'Patriarch.' What do we really know about him?"
"Not much, and yes, I have been asking around."
"The old PM went along with Glenford taking over Tokyo, and then when he's toast, this Stark pops up out of nowhere. I don't like it. We'll continue the investigation and play along with our American cousins. But when the other shoe drops, I want us to be ready to move before it hits the ground."
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Kyo's last days at the Love and Happy Culinary Design School weren't his happiest. On returning to class he learned that Hayao and Shiho had narrowly avoided being expelled. As it was, their team had been broken up; Hayao and Shiho were each in different groups, and Kyo found himself in a group with Elise and two other students he hadn't really got to know and he had trouble remembering their names. When he got home from school on the end of his last day, he found his long stay visa waiting for him in the mail.
He managed to steal some contact with Shiho and Hayao through social media, and they had a couple of group video chats. But it was obvious that they were in the dog house, and his parents did not approve of him talking to anyone but Elise.
The day he sold his scooter, he took it for one last drive around Tokyo. After driving through the intersection where he had met Sei, he drove to many of the locations where the trailer had been based. He found he had no trouble remembering the routes. He wasn't sure why he did it. Of course, Sei and the girls did not appear, but he was hoping for some sign.
His last stop was at the car dealership where it had all started. He nodded to a security camera, just in case Amy was watching.
When he got home, a buyer he had traded emails with was waiting to take possession of the scooter. He accepted the man's money and watched him drive away.
His mother asked him, "Where were you?"
"Around," he replied.
"Around where?"
"Old haunts."
His mom put it together and scowled. "Kyohei…you really are too kind-hearted for your own good. After what they did to you, you should stay away from anything related to them, and be glad you're going to France in a few days. One day, you'll look back and be glad this happened."
"Maybe. But that's not today."
Jean-Pierre sprang for his farewell dinner at a swanky restaurant. That night, he accepted Else's invitation to spend the night with her. He woke up in the middle of the night, hours after they'd made love, and looked down at Elise. 'How did I end up here?' he wondered before he fell asleep again.
The day he left for France, his parents went with him to the gate. As the plane called boarding and he said goodbye to his parents, he kept scanning the faces around him, looking for something familiar. Of course, he didn't see anything.
'If they could make it,' he thought, 'they would have. That's it…right?'
Elise took his hand. "Kyo? Are you all right?"
Kyo smiled. "Of course."
Their seat numbers were called. Kyo bid his parents farewell. As he and Elise started down the jet way, he spied a security camera and mouthed the word, 'goodbye.'
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Despite having to change planes and airlines, the trip was uneventful; Kyo did not lose his luggage. He had no problems at French customs. It wasn't long before he was settled into the Navarre townhouse…in Elise's bedroom.
He was still jetlagged the day Elise drove him to the restaurant for the first time, on a sunny afternoon. Although Jean-Pierre and the staff were getting ready to open for dinner, Kyo was introduced to the other employees.
The hostess was a blonde woman named Paulette. After introductions, she asked, "How did you end up working for those horrible people?"
"They did freak me out at first," Kyo said, "but I learned to trust them. At some point, I just took a leap of faith…"
Elsie interrupted with a smile: "Which they betrayed. But they will never trouble him again."
"Maybe," Kyo said. "But then again, they're not here to defend themselves."
Jean-Pierre nodded. "Of course. Let us be fair to Kyo's absent friends. Innocent until proven guilty."
Elise added, "Kyo has been through a lot."
Jean-Pierre showed Kyo around. Kyo's attention was grabbed by a wall full of pictures of French celebrities and politicians…some of whom were regular customers. "No bad for someone who started with nothing," Jean-Pierre said. "And I have already informed some of them of the talented new patissier I had hired."
Kyo gulped. "No pressure."
"You will be fine. Do you think you can start tonight?"
"Yes, of course."
Once Kyo had changed into his chef's whites, he went out the back door and wandered down a path behind the restaurant.
'Almost too good to be true,' Kyo thought. 'I make it here, I'm on my way to being a world-renowned patissier. And no trio of psycho girls to mess it up.'
Then again, it would be just like Jo to barge in, hot on the heels of someone who had taken Meg hostage, and wreck the place. But did he dread it or hope for it?
"Kyohei!" Paulette called from the back door. "We open in a few minutes. You have to get to work."
"Coming."
In the kitchen, all was normal: no Meg, no thug holding her hostage, no Jo blowing things up…
…no Sei…
But he had the job he wanted with a normal girl in the city he wanted to be in. What was not to like?
He heard the doors open and contained commotion as diners arrived.
'Enough woolgathering, Kyo,' he admonished himself. 'Time to get to work and show them what you got.'