Disclaimer: I don't own Love Hina. I'm just a plain weird guy writing time loop fic snippets...

Looper Mayhem!

21.

During all the time loops he had suffered through, he'd gotten over all the nervous breakdowns and his massive inferiority complex where he always compared himself to Seta Noriyasu and found himself lacking in every aspect.

God knows that was a mistake when he came to America with Seta to try to make himself more like Seta by learning to act like Seta, look like Seta, dress as Seta, drive as Seta and talk like Seta. Seta had actually been cheerful in his usual manner about his part-timer emulating himself and had been quite eager to assist in that total makeover. Well, la-de-dah, that was when he really lost respect for that second-rate Indiana Jones after reminiscing that blunder several loops ago. Even Indiana Jones wouldn't have wanted his friends and partners to dress and act like him, he'd probably tell them just be themselves. But Naru's silence after his confession to her in the hospital and that she avoided him for days had left him so messed up and confused that he jumped at any opportunity to please her, and like the fool he had been he grabbed the opportunity when he realized that the other girls wouldn't interfere while he was in the States.

Six years after the wedding and having a daughter and a son a part of him got tired of upholding that mask of Setaism. When he managed to recover from that mistake and become his old self again, as expected his marriage to Naru didn't last out the month. She just sent him flying, packed her bags and left taking the kids with her while leaving a divorce paper on the doorstep. Then he went to a bigger all-low overshadowing all the times Naru ran away from him and then he killed himself by stabbing himself through the heart with the Hina blade while wearing his old geekoid glasses and clothes.

And that's how started being a time looper after being mysteriously brought back in time and finding himself alive and kicking.

And funny enough he ran into another looper version of him, a Keitaro who after having succumbed to his breakdowns had turned into a violent psychopath willing to lash out at any perceived threat or enemy. Sure he reminded him lot of his old self when he was stable, a nice dorky looking geek, but if you gave him too many blows he would revert into his postal mode and destroy anything in his way. God knows how many times the girls owed him in those loops for locking his other self up in an asylum or in prison before he could harm them.

Then there was that disturbingly creepy time looper version of Shinobu who also was a crazy cannibal who'd eat you alive with a sweet smile on her lips or make all sorts of meals out of her victims. He always steered clear of her. His postal version either married or killed her when they met.

So here he was again staring at the stone steps leading up to the Hinata-sou.

(Should I follow the path fate has laid out for me to follow, or should I just walk away from?)

"Nah," he suddenly decided, "maybe I'll just go through this one more time." He then began ascending the stairs.

(Maybe I'll just marry Mutsumi again in this reality. I've stayed married to Motoko for too many loops this time. Maybe I'll be lucky to run into Mizuho if she's in this reality.)

He began to sing parts of the lyrics of the song the Last Unicorn as he neared his destination.

Author's notes: And this is the introduction to one of the other looper incarnations of Keitaro who goes under the call sign Cop Keitaro, the explanation behind this nickname will be revealed in the next chapter.

Funny enough I got a thumbs-down from another fic writer on the thread where I posted this snippet first due to my portrayal of Seta and Naru her, feeling that I made Seta too self-centred and Naru too shallow, even though I'm quite capable of nice characterizations of the two once in a while.

One of the rules in the Love Hina time loop thread is that the LH loopers, also designated as anchors are of the looper generation that are rendered incapable of reproducing due to the forces that be in charge want to prevent the loopers from going mentally unstable from the loss of their offspring and descendants (funny enough loopers from other generations and universes like in the SW universe are exempt from this for some reason). I attempted to circumvent this rule on the thread of the Fanfiction Forum by having Cop Keitaro have children before he became a time looper.

I also made a minor reference here to Mizuho Fujisawa, who was the AU promised girl in the Love Hina video games for the Sega Dreamcast console.