Author's Notes:
With the two year anniversary of the beginning of this fic just a couple of days away, I am sorry to say that I am still only about 2/3, maybe ¾ of the way through the story I have in mind. I gave up a long time ago trying to predict just when this story would be completed, but for a long time my only remaining time goal was "under two years." So much for that
I am also unable to predict an increase in update time. Darn ol' Real Life just won't leave me to my writing.
When Keitaro finally regained some semblance of consciousness, he had the faint recognition of being in the room that he and Kanako had been sharing at Gennai's headquarters building. But it was more of a subconscious recognition than anything else. Every muscle in his body ached and he felt as though he couldn't so much as twitch a finger if his very life depended on it. His head throbbed, his sensed were dull, his thoughts were incoherent, and even his anger was simply flatlined by the complete absence of energy in his body. He didn't so much know that he was alone as he simply could not have perceived the presence of another even had anyone else been around. His perception of time was also not functioning, and he hadn't the faintest idea how many hours he lay inert on the bed, but by the time Kanako returned to the room, he had recovered just enough to be able communicate.
"Glad you're awake," Kanako said shortly when she noticed his vacant eyes had affixed themselves to her. "It seems that I overestimated the dosage, I was getting a little worried."
Kanako's concern was readably sincere despite the curt tone of her words. Keitaro's memory was trying hard to remind him what had happened, but for the moment he was only getting bits and pieces.
"Wha happen to me ..." Keitaro mumbled groggily.
Kanako's eyes squinted disbelievingly. "You really don't remember?"
Keitaro's face went limp with thought for a minute, and then he spoke.
"I 'member ... enemy base ... we waiting for right moment ..." and then his words trailed off as his memories ran dry.
Kanako let out a frustrated sigh, and then took a deep, slow breath before answering.
"Well you're right. That's what happened. Only the right moment never came," she said. "The enemy knew we were coming. They must have sighted us during our first mission after all. They deliberately left what appeared to be a weak spot in their defense perimeter but the whole thing was a trap. Over one third of our force was lost. If our people hadn't put up as much of a fight as they had, you and I wouldn't have escaped either."
Kanako waited for a moment too see what Keitaro's reaction would be, but he hadn't recovered enough yet to really be able to comprehend something so macro in scale. Kanako knelt down next to his bed and went on with her refreshing of his memory.
"You don't remember anything about what happened to you?" She asked.
Keitaro thought for a minute again and then weakly shook his head.
Kanako's face turned even more stern. "You went berserk. You attacked the enemy command post alone and you forced me to take extreme measures to get you out. You feel the way you do because I injected you with a massive dose of tranquilizers with a small amount of silver nitrate to ensure the effect. But I must have put too much silver nitrate into the mix. Your breathing slowed down dangerously at one point and your heartbeat became irregular. You spent an hour or two in the infirmary before I could bring you up here."
All this news was too much for Keitaro's foggy mind, and his confused facial expression told Kanako that this wasn't the time to talk.
"You and I have got a lot of leveling to do, but it will wait until you have fully recovered. Eizo has assumed command of the Lycan forces for the time being and Gennai and Rikyo are going to need some answers," Kanako said, as she slowly stood up and turned towards the door. "Rest up. You'll need it," was her parting shot, and after picking up the bag with her laptop in in, she quietly left the room, leaving Keitaro's already muddied brain swirling with bad news that he couldn't even come close to processing in the state he was in.
Meanwhile, surreal glum was also the feeling at the residences of Haruka Urashima and Seta Noriyasu, and the aura there had not yet been broken since the younger girls were made homeless. Courtesy of her relationship with an ER doctor, Kitsune was extremely well practiced in offering consolation to people who'd just lost a loved one, but now that the deceased was one of her own dear friends, with another dear friend rendered nearly non-functional with guilt, she was finding her skills hard-pressed to keep herself well composed, let alone to bring any cheer to anyone else. Koan gave her great strength, but he still had his obligations to his hospital and simply could not be there nearly as often as either of them would have liked. Kitsune felt a responsibility to keep her spirits high, at least in front of her friends, in times of crisis - if the famous consoler herself needed consoling, she felt, it would have a very sad effect indeed among those who looked to her for comfort. And her best friend more than anyone needed comfort now more than ever. Naru was barely taking care of her most basic needs. Ever since that awful night about all Naru would do of her own intuition was lie silently in her temporary room at Seta's apartment. Someone would have to pressure her for a good 20 minutes or more to get her to eat a small portion of food, and Kitsune was beginning to try to figure out a way to get Naru to go with her for a short walk. Or perhaps take a shower. Or anything to show some sign of life. Though she had not said so, nor said much of anything for that matter, it was quite clear to Kitsune that Naru suffered from much more than simple grief - she blamed herself for everything that had happened. Far more than the destruction of their home, it was of course Mutsumi's death that was the hardest for everyone to bear, and that in of itself was more a tragic twist of fate. While Kitsune had to acknowledge that Naru's recklessness had to be considered partially responsible for the burning of the Hinata Apartments, Keitaro had successfully warned them of the danger and they all should have escaped harm. The circumstances that brought Mutsumi back into the fire were beyond Naru's influence. Not that this analysis was likely to be of any comfort to Naru, and Kitsune resolved not to even hint at the matter in Naru's presence.
Knocking softly on the door to Seta's office room that was serving as Naru's room for the time being, Kitsune said, "Naru? Are you awake?"
There was no answer, but Kitsune heard the faint sounds of Naru stirring.
"Naru, I'm coming in," Kitsune said after a minute, and she gently opened the door.
Although she had been provided with a proper bedroll, Naru had quickly taken to sleeping on the floor in a corner of the room with only a light blanket, not even a pillow. Despite the marginally successful efforts by her friends to keep her fed and hydrated, her color was already noticeably fainter and sicklier than normal, and the hollow, spiritless expression on her face still poked at Kitsune's heart no matter how used to seeing it she had gotten over the past few days. Naru didn't say anything but slowly raised her head to look at Kitsune.
"Naru, I really think some fresh air would do you good. Will you please come outside with me and sit out on the porch? It's a really nice evening," Kitsune asked.
Naru just continued to stare at Kitsune and gave no outgoing sign of acknowledgment of Kitsune's words. Kitsune decided that Naru's lack of objection was enough of an agreement for her. Purposefully she walked over to Naru and gently lifted her to her feet.
"Come on. It will help, I promise," Kitsune said, and putting her arm around Naru she nudged her towards the door. Naru still said nothing but gave a slight nod of consent as they started walking.
Neither of them said anything for a while after they sat down on the bench. Much to Kitsune's surprise, it was Naru who spoke first.
"Thank you, Kitsune," she said quietly. Kitsune almost jumped at her words, both because she had gotten used to the silence and it was the first time Naru had spoken in almost 24 hours.
Not really knowing exactly what she was being thanked for, Kitsune simply replied, "you're welcome."
Naru was silent again for a few minutes, and then spoke again. "I'm really thirsty. Let's get something to drink," she said in the same soft voice she had used before.
Kitsune nodded. "Sure. Let's go."
Slowly and purposefully the two of them stood up, Kitsune gently giving Naru an extra boost to her feet. Neither said anything more until each of them had drank down half a tall glass of the nutrient-rich juice smoothie that Seta had always enjoyed. Since Naru was even more reluctant to eat than to drink, this mixture was probably the better part of what kept her body functioning.
"Why do you care so much, Kitsune?" Naru asked, the bluntness of her question startling Kitsune even more so as matched with her quiet, soft tone of voice. "You really shouldn't, you know. None of you should."
As unexpected as Naru's words were, Kitsune could immediately see where this was going, and she didn't like it.
"If it wasn't for my selfish insecurities, we wouldn't be sitting here right now. We'd probably be relaxing in the hot springs ... and Mutsumi would be sitting right there with us."
Kitsune could guess what had been going on inside Naru's head for the past few days, but she wasn't about to let Naru take this plunge. She wasn't sure about how she would stop her, but Kitsune was determined to try.
"Listen carefully, Naru, because I'm going to tell you the honest to goodness truth. Yes, you acted recklessly when you went after Keitaro. No, you did not think about the possible consequences of your actions. But then, neither did Keitaro, or any of the rest of us. Perhaps Keitaro should not have let you go after you showed up at his doorstep. Or at least assisted you in getting home to ensure that these 'foreign vampires' didn't follow you. Then again, he told us all about what was going on. I'm surprised the thought never occurred to any of us either, not even tactically-minded Haruka or Seta. We could have packed up and left for higher ground a long time ago, all together. Hell, in that case, maybe the bad guys wouldn't have even felt the need to burn down an abandoned inn. Even all things being as they were, Keitaro warned us of the danger in time for us to get away. It was only because of a freak accident of circumstances that Mutsumi ended up where she did, and that is nobody's fault. Any of us could have left a note or something in case she did come back, but there was no reason to suspect that she would, and under the heat of the moment, it never occurred to anyone. So you see, maybe you have a higher share of the blame for the burning of the Hinata Apartments than anyone else, but we all have a piece of the blame for that, and none of us can take responsibility for Mutsumi's death. Not you, not Keitaro, not Mutsumi herself. No one. Understand?"
The expression that formed on Naru's face as Kitsune spoke answered well enough that Naru did indeed understand what was being told to her, but it also that both her conscious and subconscious minds were not in full agreement with it, or at the very least were not capable of accepting it at this time. Nevertheless, Kitsune had stopped Naru from taking the nose dive she had been preparing to take. A bit of awkward silence passed as each of them took another drink of juice. Naru's face was still devoid of emotion. Even though she had been sleeping – or at least pretending to sleep – for a good 19 or 20 hours each day since she got to Seta's place, Naru looked like someone who hadn't slept in weeks.
Kitsune put her hand over Naru's and looked her friend straight in the eyes. "It's hard for us all to have lost a dear friend. But with you down at the bottom of the dumps like this it's almost like we've lost two friends. I know how your mind works and I can only imagine that this is extra hard for you, but please let us help you. We want you back. We need you back. We all need to pull together to get through this. Are you hearing me?"
Kitsune wasn't expecting any kind of coherent response, and so she was pleasantly surprised when Naru, after a few moments of silence, offered her the faintest of nods in return. Kitsune had no ready response to Naru's unexpected reply, and not wanting to let the moment slide downwards any, she simply squeezed Naru's hand in support. Refilling both of their juice glasses, she motioned to Naru that they should go back outside.
While Kitsune was working on Naru, Haruka and Seta had been busying themselves looking for a better place to shelter their charges than spare bedrooms and couches. They had met early in the evening at a nearby internet cafe, sipping coffee as they poured over page after page of 'For Rent' adds. A house or small condo complex for rent was what they were looking for, as they did not want to make the search for a new home a rushed affair, and the pair were still trying to figure out how best to prevent a repeat of history. They had no way of knowing if the foreign vampires had either of their names or personal information or if the persecution of Keitaro's human friends was something that the enemy intended to pursue further, but it was dawning on them that it might not be safe to stay at their known residences for much longer. If their enemy had information on Keitaro – and they had obviously at least learned of his old human residence – it wouldn't take them much additional effort to find out about Haruka, and through her Seta, and through the both of them, the rest of the girls. Rented residences could be quickly and easily changed if security issues warranted, and could provide more comfortable accommodations for everyone than the current arrangements anyway. A duplex house being offered for rent about 30 miles from Hinata looked like the first choice among what they had found, and they planned to take everyone there in the morning to see what they thought. It was certainly a lot smaller than the Hinata Apartments had been and lacked the luxury of a natural hot spring, but at least everyone would have their own room again.
"How are your roommates doing?" Asked Seta after the brief moment of silence that had followed their agreement on the duplex house.
Haruka made a slight sigh and took another small sip of her coffee. "Motoko is ... well, being Motoko. Has spent a lot of time meditating and training. Doesn't really like to talk. Not even especially responsive to Suu's provocations, not that Suu is being especially provocative. She's hoarded pretty much every potential electronic and mechanical component out of my pad that I didn't smack her upside the head for touching and disappeared with them into the attic. My guess is she's designing some sort of weapon to fight vampires so that she's never driven from her home again. Whatever helps her cope, right?"
Haruka finished the meager remains of her coffee before finishing. "I have to say though, for someone who used to be so delicate, Shinobu has held out well. She immediately resumed her usual routine of cooking and cleaning. I was about to tell her to at least let me handle the cleaning in my own house, but I supposed that this is just her own coping mechanism and decided to leave her be. She tries to be reasonably cheerful in front of the others and I think she does indeed help them, but unless I'm hearing Motoko or Suu I'd say she's cried herself to sleep every night since."
Seta nodded. Pausing for another moment, he added, "And you?"
It had been over a year since Seta had finally gotten Haruka to quit smoking, and without her old distraction from awkward moments, to this day she still had a tendency to get fidgety. She was still holding her empty coffee cup and she began tapping in on her leg.
"I've seen all the same things that you've seen. Some of them were a lot worse than this," she replied frankly. A moment of that awkward silence passed in which Seta projected an aura of mild disappointment at Haruka that said, "don't go back to this now." Reading that from him, she let out a half-chuckle of defeat and spoke again.
"I hate the fact that we just got our clocks cleaned by an enemy against which we have little to no ability to fight back. Dammit Seta, even at the worst of times in the old days, outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and outgunned, we could still fight. We could be sure that if we died, the enemy wouldn't be laughing when they were telling their friends about the fight later. Most people would say it's idiotic to fight when you know that you can't possibly win, but I have to admit, even knowing the only possible outcome, it was no small part of me that wanted to stay behind, draw a line in the dirt in front of the Hinata Apartments, and dare the first vampire on the scene to step across it. But now we have a responsibility to help look after the girls. Even if there was something we might have done, our lives are no longer entirely our own to throw away. The only rational thing we can do is run and hide and wait for someone else to fix this problem for us. This is helplessness of the worst kind. I can't stand it."
Seta had more or less expected this response, and as such he already had the gist of his rebuttal on the tip of his tongue.
"The line between courage and foolishness is a very thin one. To sacrifice one's self in a battle against a vastly superior enemy when it is escape is possible usually sounds like the latter to me," he said softly. "This is not helplessness at all. It's not like we've never done the duck-and-cover drill before and skipped the whole fighting retreat thing. Successful evasion and escape are every bit as indicative of victory when faced with overwhelming odds as is smashing your enemy to smithereens in less unfavorable circumstances."
Haruka sighed again and cracked a small, forced smile. "Nothing adds insult to injury like getting a pep talk in maturity from the likes of you," she said. "Now all that needs to happen is a piece of this ceiling to fall down on my head and snap my spine so that I can face the rest of this ordeal from a wheelchair."
Seta smiled a little more sincerely than Haruka, and pushing his own mostly empty coffee cup towards the center of the table, he slowly stood up. "Well let's call it a night then, honey. We should probably say goodnight to the kids before they all fall asleep anyway."
His ability to retain a sense of humor in hard times wasn't always something that Haruka had appreciated in the past, but for now it did make her smile more genuine as the two of them bid their own goodnights and left for their respective homes.
It had been in the wee hours of the morning following the disastrous attack on the foreign vampire headquarters that Keitaro had first begun to recover from the effects of Kanako's drug. Even before Kanako herself had managed to get away for some well-earned sleep that morning, Keitaro had drifted off again, and it was not until shortly after Haruka and Seta had left the café late that night that he woke up. Although he was still a bit groggy, he now felt more or less back to normal – physically at least. Slowly sat up in his bed, shook his head a few times, and looked around. His head was clearing and was quickly trying to reassociate his memories with the immediate situation. Kanako was not in the room.
After a few minutes Keitaro got out of bed. He had on only a pair of boxer shorts, and so he meandered over to his side of the small shared dresser. Pulling out the top drawer, he found a short note.
"Keitaro -
As soon as you are up and able, please come and find me.
Kanako"
A feeling in the back of Keitaro's head was telling him that he should be angry, and at the same time another feeling was having him feel almost apologetic. But the conflicting thoughts were quickly producing a splitting headache. He finished getting dressed, but then just sat down in the chair and tried to finish sorting things out. The more he thought about it the more he was remembering about what had happened and what he had done the previous night. But although his recollection was linear and easy to follow, it didn't really seem like a memory of what 'he' had done. More like memories of something he had watched though the eyes of the one doing the things he had done. In fact, it was very similar to his flashes of the memories of his predecessor, Katsumoto, the main difference being that despite the third-person form his current memories were taking, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that these were his own memories and not those of another. Why he saw them this way he did not know, and for reasons he could not have identified, it troubled him deeply. All the while he was thinking about it though, he was very aware of the fact that his headache was getting worse. He sat there for several hours tormenting himself before Kanako returned.
Keitaro was sitting so quietly that it took Kanako a minute or two to notice that he was up. She sat down on the corner of her own bed and that's when she saw that Keitaro's bed was empty.
"Are you feeling better?" She asked.
Still unsure of his own emotional state, Kanako's words nevertheless snapped him out of the trance he was in, and his reply was a bland, "Yeah."
There were a few minutes of awkward silence, after which Kanako slowly stood up and approached Keitaro. He stood up too and pushed the chair back slightly, but did not move otherwise. As she got closer, her face bore an expression of exhaustion, and something akin to sadness was apparent too.
"Do you remember everything now?" She asked.
Keitaro did indeed have a more or less complete recollection of the previous night, although he could still not get his emotional bearings on it.
"Yes," was his equally bland response.
"Good," Kanako said, as she stopped walking a pace in front of him. She stared into his eyes for maybe 20 seconds or so, her expression hardening, and neither of them said a word. Then a single tear ran down her right cheek, and before Keitaro could take that in she slapped him across the face hard enough to make him stumble to that side.
Kanako had taken Keitaro completely by surprise, and his reflexive reaction was anger. Eyes wide, he steadied himself and locked his gaze back into Kanako's. But she was a master of keeping the initiative in personal affairs like this, and she denied him his response.
"That was for breaking your promise and for trying to kill yourself right in front of me," she hissed, her voice strained by a mixture of anger and hurt. "I will never forgive you if you waste your life so foolishly, and if you ever attempt such a thing again, so help me Keitaro I will personally lock you up until this war is over. You reading me loud and clear?"
Keitaro's emotions had been jump-started from zero to shock to anger and now to a combination of both with the added sense of anxiety that one is hit with when two radically different lines of thought are each vying for control of one's actions and the end result is paralysis. The paralysis was short lived, though. Kanako seemed to be struggling for words and completely failing to come up with any, and just stared into Keitaro's eyes with her own, both of which now had thin tear streaks leaking from them. With his already conflicting thoughts, his re-stimulated anger and now the agonizing silent stare-down, the discomfort of the situation overcame Keitaro's indecision. With an aura that was both purposeful and forceful and yet at the same time strangely empty and weak, he silently turned his head away from Kanako, brushed past her and went out the door, pulling the door behind him with just enough strength to see it shut behind him with a soft click.
Kanako stood where she was for another minute or two, and then slowly meandered over to the chair that Keitaro had been sitting in and plunked down in it. Propping her elbows on the small table and interlacing her fingers, she dropped her forehead down against her clenched hands and closed her eyes, squeezing out a last pair of tears as she did so.