For those readers who have watched the 'Love Hina' anime series, you may have noticed that Kentaro Sakata has one really unusual ability. And he uses it again in this chapter.

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LOVE HINA: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

By Doctor-T

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In the downstairs lobby, Kanako was dutifully and quite gladly manning reception for her brother's lunch break despite it being her own day off from work. Due to the fact that most of the inn clientele were on their prearranged bus tour of the city, reception was all but deserted, except for Mutsumi Otohime, carrying a plate of freshly sliced watermelon, who had stopped by the front counter for a quick chat.

"I saw Ms. Haruka outside the Tea Rooms earlier on, and heard from her that you and Ms. Tsuruko and Kei-kun had arrived back," Mutsumi was at that moment telling the Goth girl. "I thought that you might be hungry from your trip into town, so I brought you a snack. Um, so where are Kei-kun and Ms. Tsuruko, anyway?"

"Ah, Tsuruko isn't here, she's actually at the Tea Rooms having a cup of tea with Auntie Haruka," Kanako explained, gratefully accepting a piece of the watermelon as her throat was quite parched at that moment. "As for my Oniichan, I think that he's having a meal in his room and doing a quick bit of study. I don't think that he wants to be disturbed just at the moment," she quickly added, as she saw Mutsumi throw a longing glance towards the staircase.

I especially don't want him to be distracted by you and all three of those huge melons of yours, Kanako thought, having a fair inkling of the second reason why her turtle idiot relative wanted to see her brother. Or that sneak, Shinobu, either, that Oniichan-kissing little tramp! I need to keep his thoughts focused entirely on me, and what I've got for him!

"Oh, dear? So who's going to enjoy sampling these luscious melons of mine if Kei-kun's not here?" Mutsumi asked in a disappointed tone. "They're very succulent and juicy to the taste, you know. And I do like to share them around."

"No doubt," Kanako wryly stated, dropping her eyes momentary to the turtle girl's ample bust. I certainly don't want Oniichan's mouth on those, thank you very much! Mine, maybe, but-?

Just then Kuro chose to make his grand appearance, gliding down the lobby staircase with a gentle tinkling of his tail bell, plus a loud and attention grabbing, "Meoww!"

"Look. A flying cat," Mutsumi said with a smile. "How strange!"

"It's no stranger than you talking to that flying turtle," Kanako told her, her face unemotional but her eyes lighting up with joy at the sight of her beloved pet, friend and confidant. "Besides, that's my cat, Kuro. I wonder where he went? He's been gone for a couple of days now."

"Meoww!"

"Sorry, Kuro, I can't talk – I mean pat you just at the moment," Kanako informed the hovering feline. "I have to watch reception for Oniichan. I can go and have my lunch as soon as he gets back."

"Meow," Kuro declared in reply, alighting as softly as a piece of thistledown on the countertop next to his mistress. Reaching forward with delight, Kanako ruffled his fur around his ears. Purring loudly with happiness, the black cat let out a wide yawn, stretched, and then quickly curled up into a ball and promptly fell asleep.

"Oh, my!" Mutsumi exclaimed. "Kuro looks to be really tired. Maybe I should have offered him a refreshing piece of watermelon, too?"

"If you really want to make yourself useful, you could go and get Kuro a saucer of milk," Kanako suggested. "Watermelon might give him a stomach-ache."

"Oh, dear! Poor Kuro! I wouldn't want that, would I? But what a great idea with the milk, Kanako! I'll go and do just that." Then a thoughtful expression crossed Mutsumi's face. "Hold on, where is the kitchen again?"

"Just go straight back up the stairs and head off towards the dining hall," Kanako prompted her puzzled-looking relative. "You can't miss it. Wait! Can you leave the rest of the watermelon here when you go? I'm still a little hungry."

"Sure, Kanako. Here," Mutsumi answered, placing her plate of sliced watermelon onto the counter top. "Where do I go again?"

Kanako pointed to the lobby staircase.

"Oh, right! I'm not at the train station anymore, am I? Hey, since I'm going to the supermarket, shall I pick up some more bread with the milk?"

"No, just the milk, and a saucer for Kuro to drink it out of," Kanako patiently said. "And before you ask, no, we don't need any more toilet rolls, either. And you're going to the kitchen, not the supermarket. You go up the stairs over there, remember?"

"That's right, I remember now. Thank you, Kanako." Mutsumi smiled, her antennas bobbing. "And don't worry, I won't forget your toilet rolls, or the bread! Bye!"

Sheesh, the Goth girl hissed to herself as Mutsumi moved off towards the staircase on her mission. At least Turtle-idiot's decorative! But, apart from Shinobu, she's the only other girl here who's ever treated Oniichan well before his hospital stay, so I guess that I'll just have to put up with her.

Hmmm. Wait a minute. Now that I think about it, I know that my brother really likes Mutsumi too. And I can see why – she's Naru-class pretty, and those huge tits of hers would be damn-near irresistible to him. Hell, even I wouldn't mind getting my hands on them…

Oh, crap! For all of those reasons, she's yet-another real threat to my plan to win Oniichan, isn't she? Now I'm definitely going to have to keep her away from him, as well.

Hold on. That reminds me of something that I was told before. That brat, Sarah, claimed that Mutsumi and Fox-girl Konno were fooling around in the sack together the other night, didn't she. So if that is really true, then maybe I won't have to worry about Turtle-idiot attempting to seduce my brother, after all?

I'd best hold off here, too, until after Konno gets back and those two flappers meet up with each other again. Then I'll know for sure what – if anything – I have to do about 'Little Miss Melons'.

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Not long after Mutsumi had dropped off Kuro's saucer of milk, a twelve-pack of toilet rolls and a packet of sliced bread at reception, and then departed out through the main doorway to do god knows what, Keitaro had returned from his lunch break. The second that he had relieved her at the front counter, Kanako immediately hurried off towards the staircase and her upstairs room with Kuro on her shoulder, leaving him to deal with the somewhat unusual leavings from Mutsumi's visit. Because of her desire to talk in private to her cat, Kanako hadn't really noticed at the time that her nervous-looking Oniichan had seemed anxious to talk to her about something right at that moment.

"Sorry, Oniichan, but I have something that I really need to do right now," she had called back to him. "Can I meet up with you in your room after dinner? We can talk for as long as you like then."

"Ah, yeah, sure," Keitaro replied to her receding back, his tone a mixture of both apprehension at what he had to tell her, and relief at the unanticipated delay. "Um, after my Jeet Kune Do lesson with Aunt Haruka tonight, maybe?"

"That'll be great, Oniichan. Bye!"

Once she was safely inside her room with the door securely closed, Kanako immediately did what she had been loath to do in front of the others. She whirled her cat around in her hands, a broad smile on her pale face as she danced a jig of joy at their reunion.

"Kuro, where have you been?" Kanako gasped out, hugging her smiling black cat tightly against her chest. "I've been so worried!"

I've been back home, Kanako, meow," Kuro answered, giving the visibly rapt girl a big lick of welcome. "To the Sweet shop."

"You have?" Kanako exclaimed, not at all her usual taciturn self at this happy moment. "But why?"

"To get proof for Keitaro that you were adopted, meow. He doesn't remember that about you since your adoption happened when he was only a kid, meow. And since he thinks that you're his real sister and related by blood, that's why he can't – he won't love you. Well, I mean in the way that you want him to, meow."

At her cat's words, Kanako's happy mood instantly changed for the worse.

"I…know that, Kuro," she sighed, slumping down dejectedly onto her bed. "But I don't know where my adoption papers are. If I did, I would have told him this and shown them to Oniichan long ago. And for some reason, Father and Mother won't talk to me about where I came from, or even show me my adoption papers either! But without those papers, I can't prove anything to Oniichan, and that means he's always going to treat me as his little sister, not in the way I – need - from him."

"I understand all that, Kanako, meow. But I do know where the adoption papers were being kept, meow."

"You do, Kuro? How?"

"Do you remember when you collected the tape of Naru beating Keitaro from the safe in your father's room, just before we left to come here, meow? Well, I wondered at the time why there was a folder in there with your name on it, as well, meow. And guess what I found inside the folder, meow. Now you know why Father never let you see him open his safe up or let you look in it before, meow."

"So my adoption papers were in there all along? And you brought them back here with you! Yes! Boy, it was lucky for us both that you happened to be in the room that time when he opened his safe to put the evidence tape in after we had viewed it the first time! And thank god that you managed to memorize the combination, Kuro, or else we wouldn't have even been able to get our hands on the evidence against Naru, let alone my adoption papers, at long last!"

"Yes, wasn't it, meow. It took me a little while to retrieve the envelope with your documents inside and get them back here to the Hinata Apartments. And as soon as I got back, I gave personally them to your brother to look at, meow."

At that bit of news, Kanako's eyes went even bigger, if that were possible. "Kuro, that – that's great! At last Oniichan is going to know the truth about us! At last I'm going to have a fair chance at winning his love, and – and-? Oh, Kuro! I'm so happy! Thank you!"

"Yes, now he can finally look at you as a pretty girl, and not just as a close relative, meow. You finally have a level playing field with him, Kanako – so don't blow it, meow!"

"Believe me, I have no intention of blowing it, Kuro," Kanako reassured her pet, kissing his furry cheek before placing him carefully down onto her desk beside her futon. Then Kanako's eyes went all dreamy, and she let out a deep sigh of heartfelt longing as she flopped back-first down onto her bed. "Oh, my dear love, Oniichan. At last…at last…!"

What a great day! First I manage to find Naru, and succeed in seducing her. And now I find out that I finally have an excellent chance of winning you, Oniichan, my deepest love. I want you both – I can get you both! My Oniichan for me alone, and Naru to keep her away from him!

"Listen, Kanako, there's something else that you ought to know about yourself, meow," the black cat told his mistress, the girl still weeping silent tears of joy on her now not-quite expressionless face at the amazing success of her cat's unanticipated but most welcome solo mission. "I overheard something quite amazing that concerns you from Tsuruko; after she had discovered me in the forest on Thursday morning, so I decided to check it out while I was at home. And it's true, meow! You see, not only were you adopted, but-"

After Kuro had finished imparting his second item of urgent news to her, Kanako sat up slowly again, her eyes wide with shock at this latest revelation from her now very serious-looking black cat.

"…Oh, shit…? Oh, shit! But that means that my real mother was-? That I'm-? That we're all-?! Oh, god!"

"Yes, meow. Welcome to the real truth about your adoption, meow."

I just pray that you live long enough to reunite with all of your relatives and make amends for what you have done.

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Meanwhile, kilometers away from Hinata Hot Springs, Kentaro Sakata's red sports car raced down a side road, now safely off the main highway to the north. In the front passenger-side seat, Naru Narusegawa sat silently, still partially in shock over what had happened to her with Su's missile and Kanako that morning. Her upset and confused mind was still desperately trying to come to terms with what she and Kanako had done together on her bed, but currently failing badly at it. Kentaro, for his part, sat silently next to her, all of his senses concentrated on driving his powerful car and keeping a weather eye open for any sign of police pursuit or for any roadblocks up ahead of them. For if they were to be caught, both he and Naru would be for the high-jump, and he knew it.

Another kilometer passed in silence, and then Naru was snapped out of her reverie by a loud tapping sound coming from her side window.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!

"Myuh!"

"Look, Kentaro, it's Tama-chan again!"

"What? Where?"

"Right there, outside my window! Slow down a bit, and I'll open it and let her in."

Kentaro dutifully did just that, and once the tiny onsen tamago was safely inside his car Naru quickly wound the electric window back up to eliminate the blast of cold air that was whipping at her long hair. Then she hugged the friendly creature to her face with joy. Tama-chan rubbed her tiny cheek affectionately against Naru's own one, the tiny turtle panting heavily from her exertions as she did so.

"Tama-chan! You look to be absolutely exhausted," Naru observed in a far happier tone than she had used for some time, to the listening Kentaro's relief. "But how on earth did you know that I was here? Oh, but it's so good to see you again!"

"That little turtle certainly is amazing," Kentaro agreed. "I wonder how she managed to find us way out here. We're kilometers away from Hinata City now."

"I have no idea," Naru mused. "Could she have been coming to visit me again at your apartment and seen us leave? Maybe she's been following us ever since then, or something, and has only just managed to catch up to us now?"

"Could be," Kentaro non-committedly replied, his eyes returning to the road in front of them. "But however she found us; it's good that you now have a way to secretly get a message to Keitaro if you have to. Tama-chan's like a homing pigeon; she can find her way back to the Hinata Apartments from anywhere."

"Yes, thank god!" Naru agreed. "I feel much better now that I have Tama-chan with me to back us up."

Neither of the two yet knew it, but Tama-chan had a most unusual advantage when it came to locating Naru. When Su had designed the fugitive girl's Molmol-style necklace pendant, she had deliberately set the frequency of the pulses it emitted to be inaudible to people, but well within Tama-chan's hearing range. So the pendant acted as an audio beacon to the small flying turtle, enabling her to home-in on Naru's position from kilometers away.

"So where do we go now?" Naru asked. "With all of those police roadblocks set up on the northern highways, there's no way in hell that we can get past them that way. It's just as well that your car radio picks up the police frequency, Kentaro, or else we would have run straight into at least one of them by now, and we wouldn't have had a chance! We'll have to somehow get to your friend's house in Yokohama by another route."

"Absolutely," Kentaro agreed, his voice dripping anxiety. "But I'm more worried about the report that the police are circulating about you having been seen fleeing the scene of that explosion with an accomplice in a red-colored late model car! Damn it! Now I've been dragged into this mess!"

"I'm really sorry, Kentaro," Naru apologized, her tone full of remorse, contritely resting her right hand upon his tense near arm. "It looks like our getaway wasn't as perfect as we thought it was. I must have been seen and recognized by someone before you arrived outside your apartment block, and they have obviously phoned both me and you in to the cops."

"You're probably correct in your summation. Thank goodness that the police don't yet have a good description of me, or know the make and model of my car, as well. If they did, then no-doubt we'd have a police helicopter on our tail right this very minute! So we have to get as far away from here as we possibly can, in a direction that they won't suspect that we'll go in."

"I agree," Naru said, giving her companion a long, searching glance. "Have you any ideas of where we can go to avoid them?"

"Yes," Kentaro declared. "I've just had a flash of inspiration, Narusegawa. I'm taking us off the coastal plain and up into the mountains. We can circle around through the ranges using the back roads, and then come back out on the Tokyo side of Yokohama and enter the city that way. It's a much longer route, but by far the safer one."

"Great idea, Kentaro," Naru enthused, clapping her hands together with joyful relief at the practicality of his spur-of-the-moment plan. "Oops? Sorry, Tama-chan! So how long will it take us to make the journey to Yokohama using that route?"

"Myuh-myuh!" Tama-chan scolded the repentant Naru, her small, beady eyes now resembling miniature whirlpools from the multiple impacts.

"I'm not sure," Kentaro truthfully replied over Tama-chan's protest at being used as a bongo drum. "But I'll tell you one thing, I'm prepared to drive for as long as it takes to get you there safely, and that's a promise."

"Thank you so much for helping me. Without your help, I probably would've been either starving, captured again or dead by now," Naru told him with feeling, total sincerity in her voice.

"Well, I don't like to blow my own trumpet, but you're most probably correct with - hey, hold on a minute-!"

"Huh? What is it, Kentaro?"

"I've just noticed that our hidden observers, the ones that I've mentioned to you before, are at it again," he answered, staring upwards for a second, as if he could actually see an invisible crowd hovering above his car. "I can sense them really clearly now, and they know exactly where we are and what we're up to. It's almost as if they're blocking out the sky as they look down upon what we're doing."

Oh, no! Kentaro's going on about our 'hidden audience' again, Naru realized, a grimace crossing her face at the thought. The fugitive teen had hung out with Kentaro before, so she already knew from previous experience that her male friend would, maybe once or twice a week, stop and talk upwards either at or to these mysterious, invisible beings that he claimed he could sense - through some esoteric form of E.S.P, maybe? – who were observing them from high above. No matter how carefully she had looked upwards and around her on the previous occasions when this had occurred in her presence, Naru had never seen anyone there. Neither could anyone else who happened to be with them during these unearthly events. So watching her otherwise perfectly-sane friend begin to stare at - or even talk to - thin air, always freaked her out.

"Geez, Kentaro. Are you sure?" Naru asked, throwing nervous glances in all directions despite her scepticism of his outlandish claim. "I can't see anyone, as per usual. Are you saying that these people that you can somehow sense can actually see us again, right this very minute?"

"No…not see, as such. This time it's almost like they're reading about us," Kentaro answered in an uncertain tone, his eyes still flickering between the ceiling of his car and the highway in front of them. "Normally they just watch what we do, but on this particular occasion I'm picking up pages of text in some familiar-looking foreign language – maybe English…?" His voice trailed off into silence as he realized just how dumb that must sound to her.

"Wait a minute! You're claiming that our 'hidden audience' are reading about us this time? Like in a newspaper?" Naru pressed him. By now she was beginning to feel really nervous, despite her conviction that the very idea of hidden people following their adventures was nothing more than total nonsense. But Kentaro was always so sure that they were there, so maybe – just maybe – could it somehow really be true? "M-maybe we've made the front page of the Hinata Herald again, now that I've been spotted fleeing town?"

"No, it's more like we're all in some sort of an electronic medium, maybe on an Internet web page," Kentaro deduced. "But that's not all, Narusegawa – I can sense that tomorrow there's going to be an even greater number of these indiscernible readers following what we are up to!"

"Brrrr! Spooky!" Naru whispered in a quavering tone, a shiver of superstitious apprehension running up her spine at the now somehow increasingly more believable thought that they both were indeed under hidden observation, and that their every move was somehow being spied on by their totally anonymous audience. Kentaro had previously claimed that most of the invisible onlookers seemed to be pretty benevolent, although a few had seemed to harbor an unfathomable resentment towards her character for some inexplicable reason. Upon suddenly recalling this unpalatable fact, Naru began to pray like mad that these current observers, now suddenly very real to her, were of the kind-and-gentle variety!

"Kentaro, please get me away from this location as fast as you can!" The frightened girl tugged urgently at his near arm again, now almost totally convinced that he had been right all along. "Please, Kentaro?!"

"Yes, I think that I'd better. Hold on! I'm flooring it again!"

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In her upstairs room, the increasingly weary Kanako was trying to come to an important decision with regards to Naru. But she knew that to do so, she badly needed advice from an impartial point of view. Luckily, the return of her cat gave the Goth girl an ideal sounding board for her problem, an advisor who wasn't afraid to voice his own opinion about her very questionable actions that morning, and what she should now do for the best to resolve her dilemma.

Kuro won't be impressed about what I've done, but that's just too bad for me, Kanako realized, her mood once again grim as she hesitantly turned her tired face towards her furry companion, who was at that moment enjoying the sunshine and the gentle breeze on the windowsill. But I badly need his wisdom right about now. All right, here goes…

"Kuro, I need to talk to you about Naru. I need your advice."

Kuro floated across from the windowsill and plonked himself down on the futon next to the sombre-looking Goth girl. "I'm all ears, meow. Well, mostly anyway, meow!"

"Oh, ha, ha, Kuro! Listen, this is important."

"Okay, let's hear what you've got to say, meow," her cat quipped.

"Kuro! Enough, already. Sorry, but I'm too tired for banter just now."

"You're the boss, meow. Come on then, spill, meow," the cat prompted her.

"All right. This is what went down. While you were away, I discovered where Naru was hiding out."

That statement got Kuro's attention fast. "You did? So what happened, meow?"

"It turned out that Narusegawa has been hiding out at Kentaro Sakata's apartment, all along. I went there to see her this morning, and we – talked. But then a missile from psycho Su hit the apartment and we both were lucky to survive. Naru escaped with Kentaro in his car, and I don't know where she is now." Kanako paused for a second. "But that's not really what's on my mind – it's something else."

"A missile, meow?!" Kuro exclaimed, surprise, bafflement and alarm all warring on his face and in his voice. "And you actually let Naru get away after only talking to her, meow? I thought that you had your heart set on taking her out, meow. Maybe you'd best connect the dots here for me, Kanako, because your actions sure don't make sense to me, meow."

"To be honest, my actions in sparing Naru when I had her right there in my grasp don't really make much sense even to me, Kuro," Kanako admitted. "When I paid Naru a visit at Kentaro's apartment this morning, I went disguised as Oniichan. My original plan was to seduce her as him, and that is just what I did. But then-!"

"You did what, Kanako, meow?!"

"I disguised myself as Oniichan and I seduced her," Kanako repeated to her astonished-looking cat, her eyes downcast as she made her admission. In contrast, Kuro's ones were now three times their normal size at what he was hearing. "But please hold on until I'm finished and you've heard the full story before you judge me."

"Go on, meow…!" Kuro replied, in a very unimpressed tone.

"Well, my original plan was to seduce Narusegawa and then reveal my real self to her, watch her freak out, beat the crap out of her if necessary, and get then the hell out of there. And if I had done just that, Naru would have left town for good and we would finally have been free of her, forever. But…while she and I were making love, something really strange happened…"

"You made love to Naru while disguised as your brother?!" her incredulous cat repeated, his eyes somehow managing to increase in size even more. "Something even stranger than that, meow?"

"Yes, Kuro. And I don't fully understand it, myself. After we had finished, I suddenly found that my feelings towards Narusegawa had changed. I – I just didn't want to cause her any more harm. I even had the idea in my head that I could somehow manage to make Naru love me instead of Oniichan, and so keep him safe that way without me having to kill her or drive her away permanently. But because of Tsuruko - who pulled me out of the apartment just in time to save me from Su's missile, and who also revealed my true identity to Narusegawa outside the building while I was unconscious - Naru now knows that it was me and not my brother whom she slept with! And before you ask, no, the explosion didn't injure me, except for knocking me out for a little while. I'm perfectly fine now, thank you. Then Naru fled with Kentaro while I was still out for the count, and now – I just don't know how I really, truly feel about her anymore."

"Are you insane, Kanako, meow!" her cat rebuked her, alarm in his voice at her actions. His face however, showed relief that she had managed to escape unscathed from her bizarre and frightening misadventure. "There's no way that your plan to get Naru to love you instead of Keitaro could possibly work, meow!"

"I thought there was, Kuro – at the time, anyway," the sad-eyed Goth girl glumly declared, cupping her chin in her hands.

"Why? You already know from your previous observations that Naru isn't interested in girls that way – she's straight, Kanako, straight," Kuro emphasized over the tinkling of his tail bell, as he lashed it back-and-forth with annoyance. "What on earth possessed you to think that you could do such a thing as win her love in the first place, meow?"

"I can only think of one thing that could cause me to behave in so uncharacteristic a manner as this, Kuro," Kanako moodily stated, shifting on her seat and looking up at him again. "As you well know, I'm dying. And if that wasn't bad enough by itself, I'm dying without ever having experienced true love. While I am still alive, I want – I need - to know what it is like to be held, to be loved, to have someone in my arms who truly cares for me, and shows it."

Kuro exhaled loudly at his mistress's revealing words. "I agree, Kanako. That is most probably the reason that you did what you did, and why you are feeling this way now, meow. You have always had a great fear of dying alone and unwanted, meow."

"Yes, I am frightened, Kuro. Even though Keitaro now knows for sure – thanks to you - that he and I aren't related by blood and can legally be together; I'm frightened that my Oniichan will still reject my true love for him once again in spite of this. I'm scared that I'll now never have him, or find any other person who derives joy from just being with me, who values me, and will grieve for me when I'm gone. That's all I ask, that's all I want – to be loved by my Oniichan before I die. And if I truly can't have him, then at the very least, give me someone who I am at least attracted to, someone to comfort me and give a damn about me in my final days! Is that too much to ask?"

"No," Kuro sighed. "I understand now, meow. No matter what she may have previously done, Narusegawa is a beautiful girl, Kanako, and we both know that you are bisexual, meow. So that is why you thought that you could love Naru, isn't it? Why you thought that you could so easily forgive her for what she did to Keitaro, meow? When you seduced her and held her in bed, she gave you what you have been yearning for, for most of your life. Someone to finally love you for your very own, meow."

"Yes. That has to have been the reason for my weakness. I desperately want to experience true love, Kuro – I need to be loved before I die! And Naru was just so beautiful lying there in the nude… God, no wonder my brother was smitten with her, if she could affect even me, who hates her, in this way. Then, after I had taken her, I found out that she is suffering from a severe mental illness. But when Naru told me that she loved me – even if I was disguised as Oniichan at the time… Well, my mind just put aside the reprehensible things that she had done; I was looking for reasons to justify her behavior, to spare her from the punishment that she deserved for nearly killing the man that I truly love. I…felt sorry for her. And I still do."

Then Kanako sat straight up on her futon, her body shaking, tears beginning to form in her unhappy eyes. "But…you are right with what you said to me just before, Kuro," she continued, her voice grim. "Naru is straight. Not gay, not bisexual, but straight. She loves my brother, not me! And she would no more want to go out with me and love me than she would any other girl who has caused her pain and suffering – or any girl at all, period!"

"I'm sorry, Kanako, meow," Kuro quietly consoled her, licking at her trembling near hand. "I hate to be the one to point this out to you, but you and Naru can never be. Your plan is unworkable, and it always was, meow."

Kanako clenched her jaw and her fists at her cat's brutally honest words. "I know that now, Kuro. God-dammit! With her it was a dream, Kuro, just a stupid dream that I could ever get her to love me instead of Oniichan. But now I'm awake again – and it's over!"

"Still, you still did the right thing by leaving Naru alive, Kanako, meow," Kuro declared, jumping up into his mistress's arms to try to comfort her. "If what you deduced about her is true and Naru is mentally incapable of controlling her actions at times, had you killed that poor, sick girl for revenge, then you would have been far more evil than she had ever been, meow."

"Tsuruko told me that, too," Kanako admitted, catching Kuro and hugging him tightly against her chest as she regained control of her emotions with an effort. "But Naru's done so much harm to our family, Kuro, so much damage. And I did succeed in driving her away like I wanted to with my original plan. But now…what do I do? Do I track her down to try to help her - or to punish her further? I told Narusegawa that I had forgiven her, but have I really? Or should I just leave things as they lie? I just don't know…"

"You look exhausted, Kanako, meow. And that can't be good for your condition, meow. Maybe you should lie down for awhile and think about it after you've had a rest, meow?"

"Yes, I am tired…tired of all of this bullshit about Naru, and the other girls endlessly pursuing Oniichan, too," Kanako sighed in a weary and demoralized tone, her face falling again. "There's just so many of them, and they never stop chasing him. And there's only one of me, and I'm ill. How can I possibly keep him safe from them all? But I have to try – because I love him!"

"I understand, Kanako, meow. And I'll support you – provided that you don't go too far, meow." The black cat took one more look at her pale and drawn face, eyes lined with fatigue, and asked, " Um, exactly how much sleep did you manage to get last night, Kanako, meow?"

"Not enough, Kuro…not nearly enough. God, I'm just so tired. And you're absolutely right. I need to sleep, Kuro." The exhausted girl then lay down on her futon, stretching her slender body along its comforting softness, Kuro still balanced on top of her. "Yes, rest…"

And then she was out cold.

Kuro padded carefully forward along Kanako's now totally limp and relaxed body, to lick with affection the slumbering face of the dying girl.

I wish there was some other way that I could help you, dear Kanako. But I fear that the best that I can do for you now is to try to ensure that you don't go too far in your quest to protect Keitaro, and die a murderer. I don't want the world, your friends and your family – and especially your brother - to remember you only for a deed like that.

"I'll save you and your soul if I can, but I just don't know how to do it, meow," the black cat snapped out in exasperated frustration. "If only there was some way to cure you – but there isn't, meow!"

I've searched and searched – but there isn't!

Little did Kuro know it at that time, but his anguished conclusion with regards to the lack of a cure for Kanako's fatal condition could yet turn out to be untrue.

-:-:-:-:-:-

At about the same time as Kanako was passing out from total exhaustion in her room, one floor up, Motoko had just entered Su's jungle-clad domicile in search of her friend.

"Su? Su! Are you in here?"

A speaker next to the door crackled into life, and then the Molmol girl's cheery voice came to her visitor over the two-way intercom.

"Motoko Love-Love! Heyo! I'm down in my lab! C'mon down, if you wanna. Do you remember the access code that I gave you?"

"Ah, sure," Motoko agreed, holding down the button at her end to make her reply. "And, yes, I do. Hold on…"

Motoko made her way across to Su's huge wall closet, and then entered its spacious interior. Weaving her way through rows of hanging clothes and assorted bizarre electronic devices and items of machinery, the kendo girl made her way to the left-hand side wardrobe wall, where she entered the secret code sequence into the small keypad set there.

Instantly a large, wooden, steel-backed panel slid open, to reveal a small hidden elevator. Motoko stepped into the confined space of the shower-box-sized lift, and then pushed the button marked 'Lab'. The door slid silently shut and the brightly lit elevator whisked her downwards for a few seconds, before sliding smoothly to a stop. The door opened again, to reveal a large room, hidden somewhere deep within the foundations of the Hinata Apartments, that served as Kaolla Su's top-secret experimental laboratory.

Motoko uneasily stepped out of the lift and came to an uncertain halt, her dark eyes flickering around the cavernous expanse. She quickly took in the banks of computer equipment, shelves of tools, scientific paraphernalia and spare parts of all kinds, rows of various half-completed devices and inventions, tables, chairs, monitor screens and what looked to be suspiciously like a command console for launching various types of missiles – which, indeed, it was.

The whole technological hodge-podge was brightly-lit in some parts of the room, dimly-lit in others, but nowhere as of yet could the nervous kendo girl see any sign of her younger friend.

"Su? Where are-?"

"Motoko!"

Next second the younger girl was in her welcoming arms. The pair kissed lovingly right-then-and-there for a long period of time, before their lips finally and reluctantly separated once again – due mainly to their by now quite urgent need for air.

As she held her lover in her arms, the panting, pink-cheeked Motoko couldn't help but notice that after the first flush of excitement at seeing her, Kaolla's face had now, for some unknown reason, assumed a despondent expression. As this was most unlike Su, whose bubbly personality was usually permanently switched on, Motoko thought that she'd better inquire as to just what was troubling her dejected-looking partner.

"Su? Are you all right? Is there, perchance, some matter that is troubling you?"

"Aww, it's nothing really," Kaolla sulkily replied, biting at her lower lip. "Ms. Haruka scolded me for firing off the missile that I launched earlier, and Keitaro didn't let me go with him to see the damage and look for Naru, that's all."

"Missile?" Motoko repeated, surprise now on her face. "What missile? And what was that you just said about Naru?"

"Yeah, you wouldn't know anything about that yet, would you Love-Love? Okies, lemme fill you in on what happened-"

After the depressed-looking Molmol girl had told her the full tale of that morning's events, Motoko let out a gasp of astonishment.

"Kami-sama! So you succeeded in locating Naru, but nearly killed her in the process?! Thank goodness that she wasn't even injured, and that no-one else was, either. No wonder Haruka-san and Keitaro were steamed…!"

"I know," Su admitted in a resigned tone. "It was my fault. And I'm really, really sorry for what I did. But my silly boo-boo may have screwed up my real important plans for tonight. Motoko, remember when I asked you earlier on if you minded me going to spend time with Keitaro in his room tonight?"

"Yes… I did tell you that it was all right with me for you to go. Why are you bringing this up with me again?"

"Well…I'm scared that Keitaro won't want to see me now, because I nearly blew Naru away. 'Sniff'! I really, really, really wanna see him tonight, Love-Love! I need you, and I need him too! What if I have blown my chances of all of us being together by my stupid error?! Waaaah!"

"I'm – sure that Keitaro has forgiven you, Su," Motoko consoled her crying friend, hugging her slender body tightly against her own once again. "He's forgiven me for a lot worse than that, and Naru, too, for nearly killing him, remember? I'm sure that this particular sin of yours is way down at the minor end of the scale from our previous efforts."

"'Sniff'! Do – do you really think so, Motoko…?"

"Yes, I do. I'm sure that things will work out just fine with Keitaro when you go to see him after dinner."

"Oh, thank you, Love-Love! I feel much better now," Su cried out with joy. "Yay! I'm gonna get some from Keitaro tonight, after all!"

"Um, that's good," Motoko replied, wishing at that moment that she had been invited along to Keitaro's room as well. Then she noticed that her friend was tugging urgently at her right hand. "Ah, Su, where are we going?"

"C'mon, Motoko. I wanna show you something. It's great!"

"All right." I wonder what it is. I hope that it's not another one of those scary-looking robot turtles that she's always working on…!

"Hey, where's Sarah?" Motoko then asked, a slight frown appearing on her smooth forehead at the pre-teen's absence. "Isn't she usually down here with you?" Then a huge droplet of sweat and a worried expression rapidly replaced her previous curious look as she thought more on the puzzling matter.

I hope that that little imp wasn't hiding and taking photographs of Su and me kissing before? Motoko gasped silently, her paranoia coming to the fore. Oh, no, what if she was, and she sells them to some seedy lowlife for money?! Sarah's just the type to do that, isn't she? Damn her; I don't want us appearing on any Internet Gay porn sites! My shame would be unbearable-!

"Yep, but Sarah's just gone up to the kitchen to grab us some more bananas 'cause we've run out," Su explained, to Motoko's overwhelming relief. "Look! Here it is!"

'Phew!' Thank the spirits for that! Curse this overactive imagination of mine-!

At that second, Motoko spotted what her girlfriend was currently building. Her eyes widened and she recoiled in shock from the enormous, and to her, terrifying-looking, seemingly-finished robotic monstrosity that loomed high above them both, despite it being seated against the far wall of the huge room.

"What in the hell is that?!"

"Yep! This is the thingy, Love-Love. It's a top-secret project that I've been working on for a while now. You see, I had this weird dream a few months ago and it gave me the idea."

A dream? Motoko thought, keeping a wary eye on the shadowy shape of the seated metal giant. More like a nightmare…!

"D'ya know what's funny, Motoko," Su continued, proudly but thoughtfully. "Every once in a while I'll have another mathematical-type dream, and when I wake up, I always know how to do a little more towards building this thingy. Strange, eh?"

"Yes, b-but why does it look a bit like a giant turtle?!"

"It just does," Su defended. "I'm gonna call it 'Mister Invincible'."

"And I'm going to call it a day," Motoko nervously stated. "Come on Su; let's go back up to your room for awhile. This latest device of yours gives me the creeps!"

"Okies. But I'm making it to be our friend. It's almost finished now, too. And one of these days, Love-Love, you might just be really, really glad that we've got it."

"I sincerely doubt that, Su," the kendo girl replied, throwing one last frightened glance back at the nearly completed robot squatting down on the floor behind them, the light from a solitary spotlight gleaming off the smooth metal armor-plate encasing its massive left shoulder. "Why on earth would you possibly think that you will need to use that thing? And on what?"

"Dunno. It's just a feeling that I have. But I'm sure that I will."

Unbeknown to the sceptical kendo girl, future events would ensure that Su would find a reason to do just that.