Ah! My Goddess! isn't mine. Neither is FMP.
Ah! My Goddess!
Haloes!
Chapter 36
Ruins
Part 1
"Do you know what's worth fighting for?
When it's not worth dying for?
Does it take your breath away
And you feel yourself suffocating?"
Green Day
"21 Guns"
10 years ago...
"Ruins," wasn't the right word. "Ruins" implied that time had passed, and the rubble he was standing among was fresh, some of it still smoldering. Piles of stone, ancient unbreakable stone, covered the ground as far as he could see, with the occasional beams of wood protruding from the ground, some accidentally, but some not.
Crosses.
Rising from the rubble were crosses of wood, and hanging from each was... someone... Gods and demons were nailed to them by their wings. Some mortals by their hands and ankles. They hung there, the congealed blood at their feet attesting to them having been there awhile and having died days ago.
And before them he stood, covered in blood which had dried and cracked on his face, his hands and in his hair. It looked as if he had dived into a pool of it and emerged, letting it dry on him, encasing him in gore.
What he wore could not be seen through the blood, only the object in his hand was recognizable. A knife, a cruel-looking, hideous thing held tightly in his right hand. Unlike the rest of him, it was spotless and glinted in the light.
He looked up and caught his eyes... and was unrecognizable as the man he thought he knew...
"What did you see?"
Keiichi looked up from the petting zoo pen, caught off-guard by the question. He looked into the eyes of the goddess who had become his best friend in the world and saw the concern there. After what he'd been through in the last few months, he supposed that kind of concern was justified. He didn't want her to worry, didn't want to bring more unwanted drama to her life than he already had. At the same time, he felt she deserved better than a lie.
It was nothing to worry about, after all. A sideshow attraction, but even so...
He fought down a shudder and answered her.
"I'll never tell."
The Present...
He woke from the dream and found Belldandy looking down at him with concern. The memory rattled him, but it wasn't relevant now.
"How long was I out?" he asked.
"Only a few moments," she told him. He could hear now the rattle of rain on the roof of the clubhouse. He ached, more than he had in a long time. Swallowing, he found her eyes again and cleared his throat.
"Sorry," he said.
"It would be easier if you slept," she told him.
"You need to hear this," he told her.
"If even Neesan has not heard this, then surely it can wait until you're stronger, Keiichi san," Belldandy argued quietly.
"Urd doesn't know because of what it would do to her, not because she doesn't deserve to know," Keiichi told her. He swallowed back pain again and coughed. "You think I like hiding something like this from her? I wanted to tell her a million times, to tell her... that she didn't have to be afraid anymore... but if she knew... Goddess, Belldandy, if you had seen her four years ago..." He swallowed again and fought back tears as the memory resurfaced.
"It's all right, Keiichi san," she whispered.
"She was so happy, you know?" he went on. "It was like something out of a goddamn storybook, and..." He broke off and looked up at the ceiling. "And then it was over. All of it. I'd thought I'd lost her. I thought I'd lost them both."
Belldandy closed her eyes and sighed quietly, trying to imagine the kind of pain her sister had gone through. "How did it happen?" she asked.
"Out of nowhere," he replied. He shook his head as his eyes studied the ceiling. "And then you look back at the signs that were there and you think, 'how could I miss that?' But there really was no way of knowing."
Four years ago...
Urd opened the box from Babies Abound and examined the tea cup that sat inside. The words, "Mom-to-Be," were painted in pink script on the side, and she smiled. Examining the card, she found it was a free gift from the company and that they hoped to see her in their store soon.
It wasn't the first, "Come shop here!" invitation she had gotten, but she had to admit it was a novel one. She placed the cup in the cupboard and retook her seat at the computer. She was trying to put the finishing touches on a blog post about her current predicament, waking up one moment and finding your pants tighter than usual.
Two months in, and she was experiencing more than what she could post about. There were, after all, extreme differences between a goddess's pregnancy and a mortal's. With a goddess's spiritual sensitivity, she had felt Gersemi's presence since the moment of conception, and the older the young spark of life got, the more Urd could communicate with her. It wasn't in words, at least not yet, but she could definitely feel the emotions emanating from her daughter, and her daughter could feel her.
She looked at the screen and frowned, unsure of where to go from there.
"Well, you got any ideas?" she asked.
The spark seemed to know she was the one being addressed and glowed a little warmer in response.
"I agree," Urd told her, not really knowing what he daughter had said, but assuming she knew anyway. "Screw this. Let's get something to eat."
Before she could make it to the kitchen, however, the phone in the hall started to ring. Making a quick detour, Urd swung through the hall and picked it up.
"Ya'llo!" she said in greeting.
"Urd! It is Mischa! Is important!"
The goddess arched an eyebrow. Keiichi was already at work, and it wasn't like she and Mischa were buds or anything so...
She felt a lump form in her throat as a terrifying possibility suddenly gripped her. Her eyes went straight to the calendar hanging on the wall in front of her, a note on today's date confirming the possibility of why her husband's boss might be calling her with "important news."
Keiichi's flying...
The Norn swallowed as Gersemi's spark, catching her mood, started to bounce around in panicked confusion.
"Is Keiichi all right?" she asked quickly.
"What?" Mischa asked. Urd suddenly realized that she had either asked the question too fast or too softly for the Russian to catch it.
"Is Keiichi okay?" she bit out.
"Oh! He is fine. I tell him you ask so."
Urd planted the palm of her hand into her forehead in frustration. That stupid Russian asshole had just made her practically wet herself for no goddamn reas...
"I am having big news!" Mischa went on. "All employees and families and friends can come hear!"
The Norn sighed. "Look, that's nice and all..."
"Big big news!" Mischa reiterated. "You come. Sif can come too."
"Sif's not here," Urd told him, her eyebrow twitching. Of course he didn't care if Urd came or not, he wanted Sif.
"Er... Okay, you come anyway," he said.
"Fine," she replied. At the very least it would get her out of the house for awhile. "When?"
"Now. Come quickly. I address employees as soon as Morisawtoe lands."
Of course he had to wait for Keiichi to land, Urd knew. The Norn grinned in triumphant pride. Without Keiichi, Mischa didn't have a company, and just about everyone knew it. He was practically a partner now instead of an employee.
"Okay," she said. "Be there soon."
She hung up before the engineer could reply and turned her thoughts inward. "It's okay," she told Gersemi. "Mommy just got scared for a second because that scruffy idiot doesn't know enough to show a little tact."
Urd felt the mental equivalent of a sigh of relief from within her and smiled. "That's it. Daddy's fine. Everything's okay. We're going to go out for a bit."
Stopping at the door long enough to put on her heels and grab her purse, Urd stepped out into the sunlight and down the steps toward the car. The four-door BMW was the result of a frank question posed by Urd about where the baby would sit on the GT. Once the reality of how much Gersemi was about to change their lives had set in, some changes had to be made. So Keiichi had taken her to the BMW dealer, found something she felt comfortable sitting in, bought it and then taught her to drive it.
With some success...
Fortunately, you didn't need to be a goddess first class to repair scratches in the paint brought on by a frank disagreement with a light post... or a fire hydrant... or a wall... or...
Well, you get the idea.
Traffic was light today, and it only took twenty minutes to get to the Sukuya hangar. Pulling into a parking spot, she spotted a familiar Mercedes and smiled.
"Aunt Sayoko's here," she told Gersemi as she stepped out of the car. It must be big news if even Sayoko was out here. She felt the spark react and smiled. For some reason, Gersemi seemed to like Sayoko more than her other friends. It wasn't as if she had ever seen Sayoko or spoken with her, but whenever Sayoko was around, the feelings from the spark of her daughter's mind grew warmer. Perhaps it was because Urd and Sayoko had such an... interesting past.
She walked through the massive doors of the hangar and found a small crowd milling around one corner where a podium and several rows of metal chairs had been set up. Spotting a familiar figure near the podium, she made a beeline for Sayoko and smiled as the woman caught sight of her.
"Urd! You look great!" Sayoko cried as she took the Norn's hands.
"Well, I'm not fat yet," Urd told her. "So what's going on?"
The mortal woman winked at her. "I won't steal Mischa's thunder. This is a big deal for him."
Urd squeaked as she felt an arm wrap around her from behind and someone kissed the left side of her neck.
"Hey, Angel," her husband greeted her. "What are you doing here?" She turned and found him examining the crowd. "Um... what is everyone doing here?" The engineer was still in his flight suit, a blue and white helmet cradled under his left arm.
"Big day, Keiichi," Sayoko told him.
"Oh?"
"Mmm-hmm," Sayoko replied mysteriously. "Big day."
Keiichi looked at Urd, who just shrugged. "Don't look at me. I just got a call that said to show up."
"Everyone! Everyone be sitting down please!" Mischa called to the group. Everyone grabbed a seat, and Mischa, leaning on his cane, stepped up to the podium. He clapped his hands together once and smiled. "Today is very big day. Very important news."
"You get indicted again?" Hotaru called from the back.
"That was only the one time, and everything was working out okay!" Mischa called back as the crowd laughed. "Nyet! Bigger! Sukuya has won contract... for YF-40."
The crowd cheered in surprised triumph.
Urd leaned over to Keiichi on her right. "What does that mean?"
"It means we're going to be one of the subcontractors for the newest fifth-generation stealth fighter," Keiichi told her. "Flight control systems, low-observable technology, integrated avionics and flight testing."
Urd leaned over to Sayoko on her left. "What does that mean?" she whispered again.
Sayoko gave her a much simpler answer. "Ten years steady work and a shitload of money," she said.
"Ahhhh!"
Urd's eyes narrowed as something still didn't fit. "And exactly why are you part of this again?" she asked the heiress.
Sayoko smiled. "Nergal is the primary contractor on this project," she said. "We're the ones that hired Sukuya."
"Totally coincidental, right?" Urd asked with a grin.
The mortal woman shook her head. "Not at all. Impressions are important to Father, and Keiichi made a good one on him. I won't deny it gave Mischa an edge."
"Your dad based that kind of decision on what he thinks of Keiichi?" she asked.
Sayoko shrugged. "Sure. After all, do you think Keiichi would sell him a jet that doesn't do exactly what he says it will do?"
"No, of course not."
"And Father knows that too." She smiled. "Relax, Urd! Keiichi's made it! He's in the big-time now!"
"The big time?" Urd repeated quietly to herself. She looked up and found that Keiichi had gone up to the podium to shake Mischa's hand. The Russian hugged him and slapped him on the back. Urd smiled.
Mischa leaned over to the microphone. "Good, now Morisawtoe... build me stealth jet!"
The crowd laughed again.
888
"You okay?" Keiichi asked as they drove toward the temple. Sitting in the BMW's passenger seat, Urd's hands rested on her belly as she looked out the window.
She turned to her husband and smiled. "Yeah," she said. "I'm fine. Why?"
"You just seemed a little... I don't know... out there," Keiichi told her.
The Norn faced forward as they came to a stop light. "Sayoko says you're in the big time now."
"Yeah, I guess so," he replied.
"I guess I'm just trying to reconcile that in my head," she explained. "When I met you, you were living on your last two thousand yen and barely passing basic German. And now..." She shook her head. "How did it happen so fast?"
The light turned green, and they started down the street again. Keiichi shrugged. "I guess it just did," he said, unsure of where his wife was going with this. "It's nice that it happened now, though. We'll be making more money, enough to be comfortable anyway."
"I'm not complaining about that, not at all," Urd said. "It's just... I don't know. I feel like I blinked and everything changed." She took a breath. "Freya told me once that I didn't understand how time flowed down here. Maybe she was right."
"Don't tell me you're feeling old!" Keiichi cried.
She turned on him and pointed at her own face. "I dare you... dare you... to find one wrinkle on this face!"
"Okay! Okay! I didn't mean anything by it!" he surrendered with a grin. "It's just kind of odd to hear."
Her smile lost some of its shine. "I guess... it's just that so much has changed in such a short... well... relatively short... time." She looked over at him. "You even look different than when I met you."
He snorted. "I dare you to find one gray hair on this head..."
"Is it going to be that way with Gersemi too?" she asked.
"What?" Keiichi asked, sensing that his wife had finally found her way to what was really bothering her.
She looked down at her stomach and frowned. "I just don't want to wake up one day, years from now, and realize that I've rushed through something I should have taken my time with. It's going to go fast, much faster than it would in Heaven."
He looked ahead and thought on this. "Maybe," he finally said. "Maybe that just means we don't let opportunities go to waste."
"I'm not really getting old, am I?" she asked.
"I wouldn't say 'old,'" he needled her. "More like... matured..."
He felt her hand on his thigh and looked over to find her sly grin staring back at him. "Bet I can make you feel like a teenager before we get back to the temple."
Keiichi cleared his throat. "Oh yeah?"
"Mmmmmm-hmmmm," she murmured, her hand moving up his leg.
A slow grin spread over his face. "Prove it."
888
"And still champion!" Urd announced as she walked through the front door of the temple.
Keiichi followed and shut the door behind them. "Say what you want," he told her. "I'm having a hard time feeling like a loser in this."
"True," she noted playfully as she put a kettle on the stove to make tea. "I won the game, but you got the prize."
When he didn't answer, she looked up and found him looking around the room as if examining the place.
"What is it?" she asked.
He turned back to her, biting the inside of his cheek in thought. "I was just thinking..." he began.
"Well now we're in trouble," she remarked.
"You're making good money, and now so am I," he said, ignoring the joke. "Maybe it's time to move on."
"Move on?"
"From here," he specified, cocking his head toward the wall. "You're right, when Belldandy and I first came here, I was flat broke, and this place... I guess it came to our rescue. Now that we're established, starting a family... maybe it's time to return it so it can help someone else."
Urd thought on this for several moments. "Yeah," she tentatively agreed. "But..."
"But?"
She gave him a concerned look. "But this place is home. It's always been home. I don't really want to leave it."
Keiichi thought on this.
"Also," Urd went on. "There's Belldandy to think of. This is still her home too. And when she comes out of her seal, it's the first place she'll come to."
"Yeah," Keiichi agreed quietly. "Yeah, I guess so."
She grabbed her new tea cup and one for Keiichi and poured for them both. "Don't get me wrong," she went on. "If your job means we have to move somewhere, I'm okay with that. I think it'll be an adventure. But to move just to move... It doesn't feel right."
He sipped his tea and thought on her argument. "Okay," he finally agreed. "We'll stay. At least until that priest decides to come back." He chuckled. "By the time he finds enlightenment there'll be a whole new generation of Morisatos living here."
"Heck, for all we know about the squatting laws here, you might actually own the place," Urd said with a roll of her eyes.
A knock at the door ended the conversation, and Keiichi gestured for Urd to stay seated. He walked to the front door and opened, finding Sayoko there, her hands resting on Shin's shoulders in front of her.
"Hey!" she said. "Shin and I wanted to drop by and say congratulations again," the heiress told him. "Right, Shin?"
The little boy obediently nodded.
"Hey, thanks!" Keiichi told them. "Something tells me I couldn't have done it without you," he told Sayoko with a wink.
"Don't drag me into this," she admonished. "Father saw your name in one of the bids and decided to dig further. That's all."
"Hey, Sayoko!" Urd called as she poked her head into the hallway. "You want some tea?"
"Sure."
Keiichi knelt in front of Shin. "Okay, buddy, whaddya say we go and see if the carnival is open yet?"
The boy lit up. Not every kid's uncle had a haunted carnival in their backyard. He nodded excitedly.
Keiichi took his hand and led him outside. "Come on."
Sayoko watched them walk out before walking to the kitchen where Urd was pouring her a cup of tea. "So how are you doing?" Sayoko asked her. "We didn't have much of a chance to talk earlier."
"Me? I'm great," Urd told her with a shrug. "Goddesses don't get morning sickness," she added with a wink.
"Rub it in, why don't you?" Sayoko asked, remembering her own bouts of nausea at all times of the day when she was pregnant with Shin. Urd handed her a cup of tea and sat down again.
"Where's Keiichi and Shin?" she asked.
"Keiichi took him to the carnival," Sayoko told her. "Didn't mean to steal him," she added. Something in the statement made her look guilty, and Urd picked up on it.
"What is it?" the goddess asked.
Sayoko smiled. "I guess that's just another reason I brought Shin with me," she said. "I kinda wanted him to spend a little more time with Keiichi before... you know..."
"Sayoko, we're not moving away or anything," Urd told her with a chuckle.
"Yeah, but Keiichi has been so good to Shin." She shrugged. "I guess I wanted him to have a little more time with him before the baby comes."
Urd offered her a gentle smile. "Keiichi loves Shin," she assured her friend. "He'll always be there for him. Gersemi isn't going to change that."
Sayoko sighed and looked out the window. "If I could have picked a man to be his father, it would have been Keiichi," she said. "I want Shin to be like him, you know? That kind of man."
"I'm sure he will be," Urd said. "He's a good boy."
"Yeah." Sayoko paused for a moment before smiling at Urd and changing the subject. "'Gersemi?' You've chosen a name?"
"Yeah," Urd told her. "It's a girl."
"How do you..." Sayoko broke off and rolled her eyes. "Right. Goddess. Got it."
"There are advantages," Urd said with a wink before taking another sip of tea.
"Any disadvantages?" Sayoko asked with mirth.
The goddess shrugged. "She'll be half-mortal," she said. "But there are advantages to being mortal as well."
888
Urd ran the brush through her hair for the hundredth time and took a breath, giving herself a look in the mirror. She caught sight of her husband and turned to find him setting up their futon for bed.
"You're doing the hospital tomorrow, right?" he asked.
"Yep," she replied, rising from her seat at the make-up table and walking toward him. "One of the other girls who volunteers there is out sick, so Kiyoshi asked me if I could come in a few extra days."
He waited for her to get into bed before hitting the light switch and joining her. "How is Kiyoshi, anyway?" he asked.
"She's good," she replied. "But I don't know... a little sad lately. I'm kind of worried about her, to be honest. I'd invite her over for dinner, but I think that might be a bit... awkward."
"More awkward than Sayoko?" he asked. "You should invite her. She's still a friend."
"Yeah, you're right, I guess," Urd relented. "Tomorrow."
Keiichi rolled over and closed his eyes, already thinking of tomorrow's schedule and the huge amount of work that waited for him for the YF-40 design. As he drifted off, he heard his wife next to him, singing softly.
Even after two years it still mesmerized him to hear her sing. She didn't sing in words, there were no lyrics. It was her own language, the one her spirit had created to work around her aphasia. The notes she sang were the lyrics, and it was still the most hauntingly beautiful thing he had ever heard.
He listened as she sang the lullaby to Gersemi in a language only the two of them would ever share. She had started the bedtime ritual two weeks before. On the third day, she had sheepishly asked him if she was keeping him up. He told her she was and asked her to continue.
It wasn't just love-goggles that made him think so. Sif was as much an authority on music as anyone he had ever met, and even she claimed the singing was the most beautiful she had ever heard, even more than Belldandy's.
His eyes closed as the song ended, and he took a breath. Sayoko was right. He had made it.
This is what life was supposed to be like.
888
"Made you some tea," Keiichi told Urd as the goddess walked into the kitchen. The Yggdrasil sysop-turned-supermodel took the Babies Abound cup from him and used the tea to chase two pills. "You feeling okay?" he asked with a tinge of concern.
"Headache," she said, waving the question aside. "You let me sleep too long. I'm going to be late," she complained as she made for the door.
"Love you!" he called after her.
"Love you too!"
Urd dashed out the door and hopped into the BMW. She hated being late to the hospital. Being late for work was one thing. That was work. When you were late to help a bunch of burned children, there really was no good way to justify it. She just wished her head felt better. She had no idea why, but she had woken up that morning with a slight, but annoying pain just behind her eyes.
The goddess felt Gersemi tentatively reach out to her, and she smiled. "No, it's okay. Mommy's just not feeling well, that's all."
It was annoying more than anything else, but she supposed it could be worse. At least goddesses didn't get morning sickness. She shook her head at the thought. She couldn't understand why the Almighty had decided that mortal women have to suffer in order to create life. After all, it didn't hurt him any to create mortals. Maybe it was just his way of giving mortal man the finger. "Think it's so easy to create something, huh? Well, the rule is you can create life, but you have to vomit a lot, get swollen ankles and back pain and then go through the most brutal pain you can imagine at the end of it."
Compared to that, a headache wasn't so bad.
It still annoyed her though.
She put it out of her mind as she parked the car and walked through the main lobby of the hospital. The goddess was there to help the kids, and the kids, most of whom were enduring pain she couldn't even imagine, didn't want to hear about her headache.
When she got to the burn ward, she found Kiyoshi already there, adjusting her glasses as she looked over a roster. The millionaire's daughter hadn't changed much since her date with Urd's husband nearly five years ago, though over those five years the goddess had noticed that her friend had grown a little more distant, more lonely.
She resolved to make sure that Kiyoshi came to dinner that night. It wasn't right for a girl with a heart as pure and noble as Kiyoshi to be alone.
"Hey," she said in greeting, putting her purse down on the counter.
"Good morning," Kiyoshi said with a smile. "And good morning to you," she added with a smile toward Urd's stomach.
Urd felt Gersemi flutter at the attention. "So," she began. "What's on the schedule today?"
888
"DUBIINA! BALVAN!"
The words, yelled so angrily from inside Mischa's office, made him pause in the hallway. Whoever the MiG driver was talking to, he was super pissed at them.
He had his answer a moment later when Hotatru exited his office, sighed and tipped her hat to him.
"I love you too," she replied. Turning, she found Keiichi standing there, unsure of what was going on.
"Oi," she said. "You wanna get some breakfast?"
Keiichi learned long ago that when it came to Hotaru Woodward, you just had to go with it. "Yeah, sure," he said.
888
"You're kidding me, right?" Keiichi asked as they sat down and a parrot landed on his head. "This place serves breakfast?"
"Too right," she said, opening a menu with the Jade Parrot Bar and Grill logo emblazoned on the front. "Best place to get a bacon and egg sandwich."
Keiichi sighed, wondering if Mischa was stomping through the office yelling, "Morisawtoe! Where is you?" yet.
"So," he began tentatively. "What happened?"
"Hmm?" the Aussie asked, looking up from the menu.
"Between you and Mischa?"
"Oh, that," she said. "He's just pissed because I quit."
"You quit?" Keiichi cried. "When? Why?"
"Well, when was just fifteen minutes ago," she said. "And why is because Lockheed-Martin offered me a shit-ton of money to do the same job I do here, test flying their YF-46."
The news floored him. Lockheed was Nergal's competitor in the next-generation fighter program. The YF-46 was the main obstacle in selling the YF-40 to the JASDF, and here was one of his closest friends telling him she was going to be flying it.
Hotaru saw the look on his face and gave him a sheepish shrug. "Mischa's little announcement yesterday forced my hand," she admitted. "I couldn't dilly-dally anymore, ya know? It was either take the job now before they make us sign the non-disclosure agreements or give up on it altogether, and it's too good an opportunity."
Keiichi deflated in his seat. Objectively, he saw Hotaru did the morally right thing, but it also meant he was losing one of his best friends, and Mischa was losing a great test pilot. He could see why the old Russian was mad.
"So where will you go?" he asked. "And when?"
"Georgia," she said. "In the U.S. Sometime in the next month, I think."
He took a breath and shook his head. "Jeez, Razor," he said. "You really know how to fuck up a party, don't you?"
She smiled at him. "Oh, don't be that way," she said. "Now you get the YF-40 all to yourself."
"Yeah, I guess," he said.
Hotaru looked like she had just told him his dog had died. "Hey, we all do what we gotta, right? You got to the big time, and now I have to do the same. We all do what we feel we have to."
He finally looked up and smiled. "Heck, Razor, I'm happy for you. You're right, it's a big break."
"Thanks, mate," she said with a grin. "I hope Mischa comes to see it that way."
888
Keiichi poked his head into Mischa's office and found the Russian designer angrily tapping his pencil against the desk.
"So," Keiichi began. "I talked with Razor."
"Razor," he growled with a snort. "More like..." He thought for several moments before looking up at Keiichi again. "Quick," he said. "What is word that means 'traitor' but rhymes with 'razor?'"
"There isn't one," Keiichi told him.
"Damn!"
Keiichi leaned against the doorframe and shrugged. "She did the right thing," he said. "She could have waited three months, walked out of here with design concepts you came up with and offered them to Lockheed. You would have spent the rest of your life looking at the F-46 and wondering if you had helped them beat you."
Mischa growled again. "I am losing good pilot," he bit out. "Good woman!"
The younger man smiled. "Yeah, but she's still our friend. She made sure of that by quitting now."
"Bah," he replied.
"So," Keiichi said, changing the subject. "You think of a project name yet?"
"We will call her 'Verushka!'" Mischa announced. "After girl I met in Azerbaijan."
"How is it that we seem to name all of our planes after women you've slept with?" Keiichi asked, folding his arms over his chest.
"What? You prefer we name her 'Urd?'" he asked. "Or... 'Sif?'"
If his past work with aircraft was any indication, he would be able to converse with the YF-40, and calling it by his wife's name was just a bit too weird for him.
"Fine. We'll stick with 'Verushka," he relented.
888
Urd closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, her elbows resting on the hospital cafeteria's worn table. Sitting on the other side of that table, Kiyoshi frowned sympathetically.
"You okay?"
"Headache," Urd replied tiredly. "Can't seem to shake it."
"I think I have some aspirin in my purse," the heiress offered.
"No," Urd sighed, waving the offer aside. "No native cures. No witch doctors. I'm all right."
"You sure?" the girl asked again.
"Yeah," Urd told her, forcing a smile. "Can't win sometimes, right?"
"Yeah," Kiyoshi replied, reflecting her smile.
"So what's the problem?" Urd asked suddenly, catching the other woman completely off-guard.
"I'm sorry?"
"Look, Kiyoshi, you might have everyone else around here fooled, but I can tell there's something bothering you," Urd told her tiredly. "Now, we can dance around it for a few days, or we can just go ahead and air it out. So come on. Spill."
Kiyoshi sat back in her chair and gave Urd a pointed look. "Is this some kind of goddess thing?" she asked.
"No, this is a 'friend' thing," Urd replied evenly. "I've seen it for awhile. What's wrong?"
The young woman gave a long sigh as she thought of what to say. "I don't know," she said with a shake of her head. "I think... I don't know..."
Urd looked down at the table-top and drew a little circle in the fake wood with her fingernail. "May I make an observation?" she asked.
"Please."
"When was the last time you actually went out with someone?" Urd asked. "Like a friend? Or a date? Or... well... anything that wasn't here?"
Kiyoshi looked away for a moment. "You're saying I'm lonely."
It wasn't a question or a request to clarify. Urd took a breath. "Most girls I know your age are out having a good time," she said. "But every time I see you, you're busy. The only time I've ever heard of you doing something fun was when you went out with Keiichi."
"I guess... I'm just busy," Kiyoshi said evasively.
"Is that all?"
The heiress looked away in a manner that told Urd she was onto something.
"Have you ever..." Kiyoshi began, pausing for a moment before finding the will to continue. "Have you ever had an opportunity... an opportunity to change your life forever... and then... wasted it? Because of a technicality? Or... or... you just didn't think about it hard enough first?"
Urd thought for a minute. "Well... to be honest... I can't think of one. I guess I've just been lucky. Whenever I've gone out on a limb it's all kind of worked out."
Kiyoshi smiled wanly. "I had a chance to be like a Disney princess," she said. "I had a fairy godmother who gave me the chance to find my happily ever after... and I blew it. Because I phrased my wish wrong."
Urd went silent. She had heard about Kiyoshi's wish from Sif. As a matter of fact, there had been some brief panicking on their part as they tried to divine what her wish had meant for Keiichi and Belldandy. At the time, deducing that it was nonbinding on Keiichi based on its wording had made the two goddesses sigh in relief. They hadn't thought about its effect on Kiyoshi, that an opportunity granted to one in every five hundred million mortals had amounted to nothing. The Norn suddenly felt very guilty. Not only had she stolen her sister's boyfriend, but a man her friend had been destined to meet and live happily ever after with.
The goddess took a breath before answering. "As someone with a little knowledge in how that system works, I can tell you you're not the only one," she said. "There was this guy in Greece who once asked to have everything he touched turn to gold." She shook her head. "The granting goddess asked the guy five times if he was sure, but the dumbass wished it anyway." She tried to remember what happened to him. "I think he starved to death..."
Kiyoshi sighed. "That doesn't really help, Urd..."
"Yeah, I guess not," Urd sighed. She blinked as a thought struck her. She was an idiot! She had lived like a mortal for so long that she had nearly forgotten what she was!
The young woman flinched as Urd slapped her hands on the table. "What?"
"Kiyoshi, I'm going to grant you your wish!"
The girl blinked. "Um... how?"
"Well," Urd began, losing steam as the complications of her thought finally came to the fore. "Well... I can't literally grant your wish... But I am a love goddess. Which means that I'm a certified expert in the art of hooking people up! P-H-D in Love-ology! General Harass-titioner!"
Kiyoshi gave her a pitying look. "Like that's going to be hard," she said. "One look at my bank book, and I can have all sorts of guys. I want the guy!"
"And I'm going to find him for you!" Urd promised. "We'll start tonight!"
"Tonight?"
"Yep! Come over to my place around seven. We'll all have dinner together and start working on what you're looking for."
Kiyoshi gave it some thought and started to smile. "Well... sure! Okay! Why not?"
888
Keiichi came home to find his wife on the computer, typing furiously... well... as furiously as one can with only two fingers.
"Hey," he said. "Whatcha up to?"
"Deadline!" she cried quickly, not even looking back. "I forgot that I promised Teletha to do a blog on those new slips she's selling and it's due in fifteen minutes!"
Keiichi checked the clock. "Are you almost done or just starting?"
"I need a better adjective than 'spankious!'" she cried.
"That's not even a word," he told her.
She turned and growled at him. "If it was a real word, I wouldn't need a different one, would I?"
"Fair point," he conceded.
He listened to her type for a few more minutes. "By the way," she said, her typing slowing as she diverted some attention to conversation. "Kiyoshi's coming to dinner."
"Cool," he said.
"Yeah, so if you could get started on cooking..." she hinted, her typing accelerating again.
Keiichi smiled and went to the kitchen. "How are you feeling?" he called to her as he started rooting through the cupboards.
He heard the typing pause for a moment. "I'm okay," she said.
The engineer stopped and looked back at the door. "You still have that headache?"
The typing started again. "Yeah," she said. "It's probably just stress or something."
"Is it at least getting better?" he asked.
Her lack of an answer was answer enough.
"It's worse?" he called.
She sighed and stopped typing. "Yeah, a little, okay?" The typing started again.
He stepped back into the living room and watched her for a moment. He didn't notice before, but she looked tired. "Maybe you should see a doctor," he suggested softly.
"It's just a headache," she said, not looking back at him.
"What if it has something to do with..."
"I'd know," she cut him off quickly, turning to face him. "I would. It's okay, Keiichi. Really."
He relented and offered her a smile. "Okay. How about I make you some tea before I start dinner."
"That would be great," she admitted.
She turned back to her blog and tried to put Keiichi's... and her... concerns out of her mind. It was just a headache, though it was distracting and annoying. She had other things to worry about right now. Just a few more words and... done!
The goddess hit the "post" key and let out a breath. That was one thing down. Now she could turn her attention to her new project, finding Kiyoshi a boyfriend like Keiichi. Sure, it seemed easy. Kiyoshi was pretty, rich and had a wonderful personality. But that was to be expected of someone who qualified for a wish, which also made the mission that much harder. It meant she had to find someone for her who was like Keiichi, and by Heaven's own estimation, men like Keiichi Morisato were in very very short supply.
As she wondered where to start, Keiichi stepped up behind her and offered her her "Mom to Be" teacup.
"All done?" he asked.
"Yeah," she replied, taking a sip and shutting her eyes, hoping the tea would help banish the pain behind her eyes. "Now the hard part."
"Hard part?"
"I promised Kiyoshi I'd help her find a boyfriend," she said.
"Shouldn't be hard," he said, taking a seat nearby to talk to with her.
"The bar is pretty high," she admitted to him.
"Why?"
She took a breath and wondered how much she should tell him. The goddess decided the less he knew, the less awkward it would be. "I think she wants someone like you."
"Why?" he asked with a roll of his eyes.
She let her gaze fall on her husband and smiled. "Because to some girls, a guy like you is a wish come true."
He gave her a look.
"No! I'm serious!" she said. "Guys like you are hard to come by. You have to realize that Heaven decided you were worthy of a wish. Maybe one in five hundred million people get that chance. And you had it twice! And what's the first thing you think to wish for? That a goddess would stay with you forever."
"It could have been anyone," he replied.
"But it wasn't," Urd bounced back. "And I'll let you in on a secret, Keiichi. Goddesses don't fall for guys who are unworthy of them."
"So," Keiichi began after a long pause. "All you have to do is find someone who's worthy of a goddess. No sweat, right?"
She sighed theatrically. "Don't suppose you know any?"
"You could set her up with Mischa," he suggested helpfully.
"Mischa's got his eye on someone else," she said mysteriously. "Perhaps the internet will hold the key to my success!"
He arched an eyebrow as his wife turned back to the computer and booted up Firefox.
"Um... yeah," he agreed. "That's a ... really good place to find a great guy... I'm going to go start dinner."
The Present...
"Did you know?" Belldandy asked quietly. At his questioning look, she went on. "About Kiyoshi, I mean? That she was Sif's client?"
"Then? No," he said. "Sif explained it later." He looked up and saw Belldandy's confused look. "Believe it or not, the stuff with Kiyoshi is important," he said. "Not for... what happened then... but for what happened later."
Belldandy stood up and went to the window, looking out at the rain as it pelted against the glass. She could feel it coming, the point in Keiichi's story that would be the most painful for her to hear. She loved her sister, and even in the darkest moments of the last few days, she never wished her any harm, didn't want to see her in pain.
She swallowed as she tried to imagine it. The thought made her want to fly to Urd's side and hug her and not let go for a year. Belldandy had spent the last several days weeping for the hard times in Keiichi's life that she had missed, and for the first time she realized that her sister had also suffered, suffered terribly. And she hadn't been there.
If she hadn't been taken, if she had gone on to marry Keiichi and bear his daughter... would she have suffered a similar fate? The thought was enough to make her shudder, and just for a moment, she counted herself lucky.
"What happened then?" she asked softly, willing herself to hear it.
"We had dinner with Kiyoshi," Keiichi told her simply. "Urd showed her the nursery we were building in Peorth's old room, and they talked about men." He chuckled. "To be honest, I didn't pay much attention. Now I wish I did. It was the last time for a long time that I saw her... carefree."
She looked down at him and saw him biting his lip, as if trying to force himself to not speak. "It... It happened the next day..."
Four years ago...
That's it, she thought. I'm calling Sif's cousin.
Her hand shook a bit as she lifted the tea-cup to her lips. The pain hadn't been too bad last night, and she and Kiyoshi were able to talk until nearly midnight, plotting as only a love goddess and her client could.
But when she woke up this morning, the annoying ache had become a throbbing pain in her forehead. She had shooed Keiichi off to work without bringing it up, hoping that a hot bath and some chamomile tea would soothe it, but three hours later she just felt worse.
She stood up and walked to the window, the light from outside reaching through her eyes and squeezing her brain in a vice-like grip. The goddess felt Gersemi trying to get her attention, but through the pain it felt so far away, like she was trying to hear someone shout from across a football stadium.
The goddess rubbed her temples and actually spoke aloud rather than thought. "I'm sorry, honey, what?"
It felt as if someone had slammed into her and wrapped their arms around her. She actually stumbled and fell on her butt as she realized that it wasn't physical, but spiritual. Gersemi had mustered everything she had to touch her mother.
And that's when Urd finally felt it.
The grip was fading away. In a panic she reached out with her spirit and grabbed hold of her, like grabbing the arm of someone falling off a cliff.
What's going on? What's happening? she thought. The pain in her head had intensified in the last few seconds. It wasn't just harder to hear Gersemi, it was harder to feel her. She gasped silently as a sudden, intense pain struck her abdomen as if she'd been kicked in the stomach by Sleipnir. She hit the hard wood floor and rolled onto her side, clutching at her stomach. She felt her grip on Gersemi slipping as her concentration wavered in the pain.
Elegance! she cried in her mind. Elegance, get her!
She could feel her angel trying to make a spiritual bond with Gersemi, but for some reason couldn't make it happen. She summoned all the will she could and fought through the pain to grab hold of her again. The goddess could almost see it in her mind's eye, her hands wrapped around her daughter's as Gersemi hung over an abyss...
The abyss.
I've got you, she sent to Gersemi. I got you, hold on...
She had a good hold now, but the pain was nearly unbearable. Urd raised her head and saw her cell phone sitting on the kitchen table.
Just hold on, she told her baby. Mommy's getting help. Hold on...
She kicked out with her legs and felt them sliding against the polished wood, making it difficult for her to find purchase. She managed to make it a few inches.
Her grip was coming loose!
No! she cried to herself, intensifying her hold on Gersemi. The pain in her head and body seemed to meld together into one constant tide of hurt. She found herself sobbing, crying in fear...
Some part of her mind realized that there were no tears hitting the floor below her, and that the sobbing sounds weren't coming from her throat, but in her mind.
Gersemi was crying. Crying and clinging to her with all her might, but the grip was still coming undone. Urd held tighter but it was as if the arms she was clinging to themselves were melting away.
She howled in fear and reached out, clawing at the wood with her fingernails, breaking them against the polished oak as she pulled herself toward the table. The goddess pushed out with her legs again, and her hand finally found the leg of the table.
Gersemi's sobbing was slowing.
With a grunt, Urd hurled her hand upward and grasped blindly for the phone. She felt her fingers brush against it and heard it fall to the floor next to her. She took a few breaths and opened it, rolling onto her back as another wave of agony crashed over her like a heavy surf.
She hit the speed dial button for Keiichi and listened as the phone rang. The Norn turned her attention inward and tried to regain her grip on Gersemi. The child's spirit was running through her fingers like warm water from a spilt pitcher, and she struggled to grasp all of it. She could barely hear her anymore.
Keiichi's voicemail answered.
She screamed and hit a speed dial button at random, collapsing against the floor as it dialed.
Elegance, she thought in desperation. Elegance, bond with her. Become her angel. Save her! Please save her!
The angel tried. Urd could see in her mind's eye the angel taking the wisps of her mistress's child and try to meld with it, but there was nothing. No ethereal glow, no sign that Gersemi was accepting her. Tears ran down World of Elegance's face as the angel realized it wasn't going to work.
"Hello?"
Urd's gasps took on a new urgency as her eyes found the phone on the floor next to her.
"Hello? Urd? You there?"
The goddess swallowed and gasped out a few words.
"Sa...Sayoko..." she breathed into the phone. "Book... camera shark..."
888
Sayoko looked down at the phone in puzzlement. "Urd?" she tried again, craning her neck to see if anyone in the meeting she had just ducked out of was looking through the glass walls at her. "Urd? Are you okay?"
"Tollbooth... harp...harp... help... help...help..."
A ball of ice clawed into the girl's throat as she started quickly for the elevator. "Urd? Urd? I'm on my way, okay? Just stay on the line!"
She quickly hit a button and opened a second line. Sayoko was on the other side of town from the temple, and it would take forty-five minutes for her to get there. Urd needed help now. She dialed and waited for Keiichi to pick up as she jump into the elevator and mashed the button for the ground floor.
She got the machine. Keiichi must be flying. She closed the line and bit her lip. Megumi and Toshio were in Kyoto all week for a Ren Fair. There was only one other person who might be close enough to help. She opened the line to Urd to check on her first.
"Urd? Are you still there? What's wrong?"
"HELP ME! HELP ME!" the goddess was sobbing into the phone now, the only two words she could think to say.
Sayoko opened the other line and dialed.
888
The limo screeched to a halt outside the temple, and two figures leaped out, the taller one trailing the shorter one, much to his disconcertion. But Teletha had no intention of slowing down. It had taken ten minutes for them to get here after Sayoko's call for help. She heard sirens in the distance, and hoped that the ambulance was on its way... or the police... or the fire department. Sayoko's call had been rather vague, so Teletha just called everyone she could think of.
She reached the top step and pulled at the door, but it was locked and wouldn't budge. Looking over her shoulder at her companion, she called for help.
"Sagara san! It's locked!"
A quick kick from her new bodyguard sent the door smashing inward, and the scarred man, gun raised, entered the residence.
"Urd!" Teletha called as she rushed inside. "Urd? Where are you?"
Sagara stepped into the kitchen and knelt next to the table. A cell phone sat on the ground next to traces of fresh blood. Faint scratches in the wood suggested someone crawled or was dragged away. His keen eyes followed the trail, and he raised his weapon. He could still hear his boss calling for her friend.
"Tessatarossa san," he called quietly, and Teletha turned toward him, catching sight of him from down the hall. He pointed toward the living room. "In there."
The CEO made for the room, but Sagara held her back. "Me first," he said. He stepped toward the room and past the threshold, sweeping the room with his weapon. He must have found something, because Teletha saw him pause and kneel down, holstering his weapon as he went.
"Over here!" he called to her, and Teletha rushed forward. The sirens were closer now, coming up the driveway.
When Teletha entered the living room, she found Urd lying on her back near the TV, her eyes closed as if asleep, and her fingers covered in blood from where she had clawed her way toward the television.
"Urd!" Teletha cried, kneeling next to her friend. "Can you hear me? Wake up!"
The Present...
Skuld listened closely as the rain drops struck the roof over her head. Peeking through the small crack she left in the closet door, she scanned the old woman's bedroom again, half-suspecting that Ameko would burst through the door at any moment. She rubbed her arms and let out a nervous breath.
That god, Vakarine, said help was coming. She just had to wait. Then they could go and find Oneesama and Urd. All she had to do until then was stay out of sight.
She hoped the others were okay and wondered who put the barrier up and why. Perhaps Oneesama took Keiichi there and walled up the place so Ameko couldn't get to them. But why would they leave her locked out? It was strange.
None of this made sense. She felt like someone who had walked into a theater in the middle of the movie and now had no idea what was happening. Vakarine hadn't answered any of her questions, though she spent a good bit of time answering his. It occurred to her that she didn't even know what he was, though the gruff demeanor made her think he was a Valkyrie.
Her head shot up as the first sounds of footsteps in the hallway made their way through the wall and to her ears. She swallowed as they grew closer and raised her hands, ready to cast a spell.
She heard a long creak as the bedroom door opened, and the goddess took a deep breath.
"Skuld?" an unfamiliar man's voice whispered. "Are you here? Vakarine sent us to help you."
She let out a breath and looked through the crack in the door. Sure enough, a god with short, curly brown hair was looking around the room, searching for her.
Skuld opened the door, and the god spun to her. She stepped forward and smiled. "Am I glad to see you," she confessed.
"Are you hurt?" the god asked.
She shook her head. "No. Just a little freaked out." The goddess gave him a once over. "I'm Skuld."
"Esus," he said with a nod. Skuld heard the bedroom door open behind her. "My associates, Leyak and Ipos."
Skuld turn to say hello and thank them for coming to her rescue, but stopped short when she saw them.
Standing in the doorway before her were two demons.