Love Hina: Once Again

Chapter 32

Rei Hino was used to the supernatural, more or less. Being a member of the Sailor Soldiers had led to her seeing a LOT of interesting stuff. As well, she had done professional exorcism services under her Grandfather, and had seen some very strange sights.

But this actual headless horsewoman might be a whole new thing.

The group had arrived at Russian Sushi a few minutes ago, setting up at a table. Simon Brezhnev had welcomed them cheerfully, provided menus and pretty much LOOMED over them until they ordered something.

"Weird place," Ami murmured.

"Hmm," Rei agreed.

Kitsune complained about paying, but even she had to concede this was a work expense. So they settled down and ate, even as they waited for their target to arrive.

Rei was eating a roll when a sudden chill ran down her spine. "Something's coming," she said to the others quietly.

"I feel something too," Misaki Saiki agreed, the albino blinking a few times. "Occult energy... a lot of it."

Anthy, interestingly, seemed mostly unbothered. Rei wondered if that meant she hadn't sensed it, or possibly just didn't care. Strange woman...

"Welcome! Welcome!" Simon declared as three figures arrived. There was a (apparently) normal looking school girl, a wary looking young woman and a tall lady wearing a motorcycle helmet. "Your party is over here," he said, leading them over.

"Miss Celty?" Kitsune asked, getting up from her seat and offering her hand.

The tall woman shook it, then oddly took out a small, smart phone like device. She typed quickly, "Why were you looking for me?"

'Of course, if she's headless she can't talk. Huh,' Rei blinked.

"A source of mine hired us to attempt to capture you," Kitsune admitted. "We were also specifically ordered not to harm you."

"The agency I work for also recieved information you MIGHT be a threat," Misaki admitted, "so I was sent out to investigate."

Her friend Shizue waved, "I'm just the plus one."

"I'm Anri," the school girl softly introduced herself to the others as Celty and Kitsune 'talked.'

Rei was faintly surprised to feel something like 'murderous intent' coming off the seemingly normal girl. It was eerie. And WOW did she have a nice rack... Rei noted Ami scowling at her and made herself stop noticing that.

The man also gave off a dangerous vibe, but at least he felt non-supernatural. So there was that.

"Yo," Shizuo casually waved. "If any of you actually intend to hurt Celty, I'm going to have to beat you bloody. Nothing personal."

"Gee, thanks," Utena dead-panned.

Shizuo just grinned back, clearly not bothered.

Rei also noted that Motoko looked like she was ready to leap to everyone's defense against Anri. Clearly she sensed SOMETHING there too.

Up sat the head of the table, Kitsune, Misaki and Celty were talking, though of course they could only hear the two women...

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Izaya Orihara wasn't dumb.

Right after his run in with Shizuo, he had taken a train and headed out of town. There were various ways he could see his manipulations playing out, and at least some of them could involve angry people looking for his head.

Izaya dialed his phone. He had a LOT of contacts in and around the city. He had to, really, to be the Information Broker he was. That also meant that he could, with a call, mobilize armies if he wanted. But he was just checking up on what was going down...

"Hiii, this is Mika!" the cheery voice answered.

Mika Harima was strange even by Tokyo standards. A crazed stalker, she had had her face re-made to resemble the person her boyfriend loved. She was also easedropping electronically on nearly everyone in town that was remotely connected to them. She had even tried to bug HIM.

"What's going on with the groups looking for Celty?" Izaya asked bluntly.

"Aww, it's YOU. I was hoping Seiji was calling and we could have a love love phone conversation...," she pouted.

Izaya bit back a sigh. "I'll get you tickets to the new, very exclusive restaurant, you and Seiji can go together," he offered.

Mika almost instantly got serious on hearing that offer. "Both groups chasing Celty made contact with her via the Dollars website," she informed him. "They're now meeting at Russian Sushi." she added smugly.

"As expected," Izaya noted.

"Kitsune has revealed to Celty that a 'Information Broker' sent them after her," Mika paused. "And that's set Shizuo off..." she added, amused.

Izaya winced. Shizuo was, possibly, the only person he would consider a 'true enemy.' The man was SO straight forward and simple that he was nearly impossible to manipulate. Plus he could throw around VENDING MACHINES.

"... Anri is there too. No sword appearing though," Mika continued.

Izaya smiled wryly. "You'd best stop now," he noted, "you don't want Simon catching you. Thank you."

"Don't get killed," Mika finished and hung up.

Izaya snorted as he put his phone away. He clearly was going to have to keep his head down for a bit... It was too bad. He had been hoping to see Celty in serious combat against magical foes. Well, he had achieved one of his goals at least. There was that.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"All right. So I think we can all go our seperate ways peacefully?" Celty typed. "Unless you want to fight just for the fun of it."

"Oh no," Kitsune answered quickly.

Motoko, interestingly, looked faintly disappointed with that. Apparently she wanted to try to cross swords with Anri, even though the shy girl appeared unarmed.

"I'm perfectly fine not fighting," Misaki agreed. The albino looked at Celty thoughtfully, "I will have to submit a report to the agency I work for. Will that be a issue?"

"I'm not happy about it, but I expect the government already knows about me," Celty noted.

Ema, typing on her own laptop, sighed. "This ending is SO anti-climatic! It's like the writer just couldn't come up with a good ending."

A waiter mysteriously spilled a glass of water on Ema.

"Et tu, writer?!" Ema sighed, but decided not to complain again.

"Hey Simon, the fourth wall here at Russian Sushi seems kind of weak," Anri noted, "might want to shore it up a bit."

"Moving on...," Kitsune decided taunting the author was a BAD idea.

"I have work to do," Celty typed, "plus my boyfriend knows about this meeting. He's probably worried about me."

"Thank you for coming out," Kitsune nodded politely as the three filed out together.

Shizue puffed out a breath as she smiled at Misaki. "That was tense," she muttered.

Misaki smiled back wryly. "Having non-combat related abilities sucks," she agreed.

"So, we're done right?" Ema asked, still sounding disappointed.

"We're done business, yeah." Kitsune agreed. She looked around the group, "Well, we're in Tokyo. What say we hit the town?"

"We invited?" Shizue asked, giving Kitsune a arch look.

There was a cracking noise, and everyone looked at Motoko, who had, somehow, broken a set of chopsticks in her hand. "Ooops," she winced.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Mikado Ryuugamine was checking the Dollars website, in between doing his homework. Things had ended peacefully, and he was hoping things would stay quiet. It wasn't likely, of course, but he could hope.

Someone named Foxy logged in, and posted to the forum.

Foxy: What I don't get is, WHY?

Saika: Why what?

Foxy: Why the Broker set this all up.

Foxy: They HAD to know once we met and talked, there'd be no fight. So why rig this?

Medium: Good question.

Kanra: Maybe the fight wasn't the point.

Foxy: Oh?

Kanra: Maybe the Broker just wanted to engineer the various people meeting.

Saika: You think so?

Saika: Hello?

Kanra has logged out of the chat

Mikado sat back, frowning at what he had just read. If that was so... then what was Izaya up to NOW?

To be continued...

Notes: I confess, I fugged up. A reviewer pointed out that there would be no good reason the characters would actually fight. After some thinking I basically agreed, which meant I could either erase the lead in chapters and start over, or just try to wrap this bit up. I went for wrap it up.