"Ai Shiteru"
An Ah! My Goddess/Ah! Megami-sama Fan FicBy: icezer230, a.k.a Shu.
E-mail: icezer230@yahoo.com (C&C welcome)
Webpage: http://icezer.itgo.com/fanfic.html
A BUNCH OF COPYRIGHT STUFF
This story right belongs to me (icezer230, a.k.a Shu). The characters true to AMG are copyrighted by Kosuke Fujishima and his associates. Brett, Chia-Yao, Syliana, and the other immortals (unless mentioned otherwise) from the 'Oh! My God!' fanfiction are copyrighted by Darkwind (a.k.a Brett Handy) and have been used with permission. The character of Kenji from the 'No Mere Mortal' fanfiction is a creation of Ed Sharpe. This is my first attempt at fanfiction, so give me all the gory details on spelling, grammar, and other errors. If you haven't read chapter 1, please do so.
*****
Skuld opened her eyes slowly and she saw the ceiling. She blinked a few times. She remembered what had happened yesterday and shut her eyes so she could block the sun's rays. She just wanted to close her eyes forever. She wanted to ignore the fact that she had just hurt both of her best friends' feelings.
Considering the fact that Chia-Yao was probably one of her closest friends and they almost never had a real fight about anything (they always joked about it when they did), she felt alone for the first time in the world. _Really_ alone. And now she was going to have to tell Kenji about her being a goddess…and hurt him too. *This realm is making me sick. It's making me weak! Maybe I should get out of this realm for a while...*
She opened her eyes and made up her mind. She put on a fresh pair of clothes and cleaned herself up. She needed some time alone, some time to herself. Alone. She needed to sort things out. She knew her sisters would understand her if she told them that, so she left a message on her notebook. Then she disapppeared into thin air.
"The past tempts us,
The present confuses us,
And the future frightens us…
And our lives slip away,
Moment by moment,
Lost in that vast,
Terrible in-between."
--Emperor Turhan, Babylon 5CHAPTER III: TRUTH HURTS "She's what!" Kenji shouted into the receiver. Good thing Belldandy had her ear well away from the ear-piece or she would have gone deaf. Even her immortal ears wouldn't take the high volume. *Mortals are so predictable these days* she thought to herself, chuckling a little as well.
"Skuld's not here, Kenji. She's a young lady of 16 years and she has the right to decide what she wants to do. It seems that she wants some time to herself. She'll be back when she's finished what I assure you will only be a temporary seclusion. When she does, I'll call you. Is there anything else you would like to do? Would you like to speak to Keiichi?" Belldandy said as sweetly as she could into the phone.
*God, she hated talking nice all the time, but she had to watch herself in the mortal realm. In front of Keiichi, too. She had to keep her image of being innocent and indifferent so the mortals would think up to the image of the immortals. Urd and Skuld weren't exactly helping her…* she thought to herself as she heard Kenji saying that it wasn't necessary.
Ever since she found out Skuld had left the temple, she had been having thoughts about some private time of her own in Heaven. The thought stuck to her all day and she decided, 'why not?' She didn't have to stay with Keiichi ALL the time (can't a girl have her privacy? Besides, forever IS a long time!), she needed a little break from her 'babysitting', and she was dying for a taste of immortal food—namely ambrosia. It WAS her favorite and it had even got her a nice friendly position with the Greek gods.
She then hung up and went back to her room and slipped into the mirror for a moment so she could go back to heaven. Urd and Brett had gone back to their secluded paradise of Christmas Island to finish off their vacation before Skuld was gone so they didn't know that Skuld was gone. Keiichi, as usual, was still trying to fix his motorcycle, still unaware that Belldandy was gone.
*****
Skuld had gone back to Heaven and packed a few things for her trip. Well, it was more like unpacking rather than packing: she dumped all the stuff she carried in her pocket dimension and sorted the ones she really needed. Still, her trusty mallet was going to be handy at times—her looks had matured enough so that there were few male heads that didn't turn when she walked past them on the street. There was no doubt now that she was Urd's and Belldandy's sister, since she had a bit of both features in her.
"Skuld? Is that you?" a familiar female voice gasped just as she walked out her pocket dimension, finished with packing. She turned her head around towards the direction of the voice and found herself looking at a female valkryie about her age (beautiful and perhaps more mature-looking than her, but wearing close to nothing, for valkryies certainly caught people's attention in order to bring them across to the gates of heaven!) walking towards her direction. The valkrie and half-goddess had dyed-brown hair, light blue eyes and had the figure all models wished for without even going through the ordeal of a diet.
"Rhiana?" Skuld said in a whispered voice when she recognized the girl. They hadn't seen each other in what seemed like ages! They had both been in the Ygdrassil system when she had last been there (both as debuggers) but Rhiana had been transferred into another division of the administration, leaving Skuld to do all the debugging since Kami-sama had not found someone else as qualified.
"It IS you, Skuld! Great to see you! So how have things been going?" Rhiana asked cheerfully. Rhiana had also been one of her closer friends. After all, they grew up and went to school together (and even graduated together since they were both geniuses). Settling down in the mortal world and trying to keep her eye on her sisters' relationships didn't exactly give her a chance to contact Riana.
"Well… Not so great, Rhi…" Skuld grimaced. 'Rhi' (short for Rhiana) noticed the sad expression on Skuld's face and knew something was very wrong. Skuld didn't usually have a drag face unless she was really upset about something.
"What went wrong?" Rhi asked as she touched Skuld's shoulder. Skuld gestured Rhi into her pocket dimension and they talked about yesterday's events over some ice-cream Skuld kept for emergencies like this. Rhi listened patiently and was in deep thought when Skuld had finished.
"So you're going to go on a vacation for a while?" Rhi asked Skuld at last, breaking the silence barrier that was just erected a minute ago. Skuld nodded. She continued, "Well then maybe I should keep you company! I've been travelling around the world recently and I've seen quite a lot of great sites that I want to see again. Are you up to it?"
"Uh, what exactly have you been doing while I was down there, Rhi?" Skuld asked sheepishly.
"Oh yeah I forgot to tell you, didn't I. I've just been doing some errands for Aska. You know, doing some valkrie work so that souls can finally rest in heaven and all that shit. I can't believe I still have to fight some demon just to get the souls to come with me. Aska's just the greatest there is. Have you met him?" Rhi said, smiling. Aska was Rhi's brother but since he was so busy for all the time Skuld had known Rhiana, Skuld had never met him.
"Uh nope. I think he met me, though," Skuld said. She told the part about Urd calling Aska on the phone.
"I was wondering about that one," she said. She explained that her brother had disappeared yesterday for about a minute or two and then came back to her. He didn't say anything about it and she didn't ask. She knew that if Aska wanted to tell her, he would have told her.
"Well I guess you could come with me… What about your brother and your job?" Skuld said, still unsure. She didn't want to impose like that.
"My brother can fend for his job--there are other valkries around. Besides, I'm due for a little vacation anyway. I'll just give him an e-mail saying I'll be gone for a while helping you," she said, smiling and pulling Skuld's arm as she walked off to a direction. Skuld felt a little uncomfortable about that Rhiana pulling her arm so she let go and caught up with her instead. Then they both disappeared into thin air.
*****
"So where are we?" Skuld asked Rhiana. They were standing before the tall gates of someone's pocket dimension. Beyond that, there was a large and well-kept garden, and a small cottage house.
"My place. Come on in. I'm going to send that e-mail I was talking about and take a few things…I can't exactly go down on the mortal world wearing this..." Rhiana said, opening the metal gates. Skuld thought, *I never knew she liked to live in a cottage.*
After they reached the cottage, Rhiana opened the door and ushered Skuld to go in. Skuld was amazed at the size of the room they were in. It was huge! This was technically impossible in the mortal realm, but it was possible in Heaven. She was the one who had actually created the machine that made this possible. It was evident that Rhiana took it a step further and enchanced its abilities to make her own place.
"So what do you think? I perfected your original design for dimensional expansion. You could have done that yourself later, but if I didn't do it now I wouldn't have all the space I wanted for my own little experiments," Rhiana said, pouring a glass of lemon squash for Skuld. Once inside she had changed her clothes into a simple navy blue T-shirt and short khaki pants.
"Kami-sama didn't grant you more space?" Skuld wondered as she sipped the lime squash. Rhiana was one of His favorite daughters, perhaps as much as her.
"Well, I sort of fell in love with the wrong person," Rhiana said, smiling sadly as if running the memory of it again in her mind. The two goddesses had photographic memories (if you didn't know) but Skuld didn't remember hearing about it.
"So Kami-sama transferred you out of the section because of it, and gave you a smaller dimension?" Skuld asked, feeling ridiculous. At the moment she wasn't very happy with her Father.
"Yeah, basically that's it…" Rhiana said, staring into her own glass of lemon squash. Skuld felt sorry for her and felt gladder that someone else close to her had a relationship problem.
"So do you still think of him?" Skuld wondered.
"Actually…Her," Rhiana replied, blushing. Skuld raised an eyebrow but said nothing. *I didn't know her preference, really!* she thought to herself, smiling inwardly. After all, being homosexual or bisexual was considered normal in Heaven. There were only a few immortals who were 'straight.' And they were the ones who haven't been around the world that much…like herself and Belldandy. She wasn't so sure about Urd's preference though, since she was so unpredictable.
"It's allowed, right? So what made Him so angry at you?" Skuld said, still not understanding.
"I-I… I'm not sure…" Rhiana said, blushing beet red. She started walking off to the direction of her computer. Then she rapidly typed a few words and came back to sit with Skuld. Her blush had faded a little by then.
"Anyway, where do you want to go?" Rhiana asked the shorter goddess.
"I don't really know…" Skuld said sheepishly now.
"Tell you what, why don't we just stay here? You know that no one can find us here. My brother never comes and you can share the bed with me," Rhiana said since she only had one bed. Then she stopped, noticed Skuld just staring at her blankly, and blushed. "I didn't mean it like that…"
"As much as I'd like to spend the night with you here, I think it's better that I explore the mortal realm so I get to see the place more. All I've seen of it is Australia and Japan. Say, why don't we go to Bali for a couple of days? I hear you can get a good tan," Skuld suggested, knowing that Rhiana wasn't saying what she said on purpose. She wanted to get a tan pretty bad. Urd looked good in one, so why couldn't she get one?
"Sure," Rhiana said. It had been a while since she got a tan herself. A moment later, they were off.
*****
"Belldandy?" Keiichi shouted. He was really hungry and he wondered why she wasn't at the kitchen, preparing for lunch. He wondered where she was. In fact, he also wondered where Skuld was. He was alone in the temple. Had the goddesses left him at last? Had his wish been revoked? Had his love been taken away from him?
His mind and stomach spun dizzily. He was thinking too much, and he knew that an empty stomach could do it to someone like him. He trotted down to the kitchen and looked for something to eat. He found a packet of instant noodles and started boiling some hot water. He sighed once more as he realized that he would have to fend for himself...since he couldn't cook very well.
*****
"Belldandy?" a similar question was asked but it was said by another person. It was Athena, one of Belldandy's circle of friends.
"How are you Athena? It _has_ been a while since we last met, right? How are the affairs of Greece?" Belldandy said, greeting the tall and slender goddess with a hug and kiss. Since the ancient times, the Greek goddess had assumed the dress of modern days. Athena was wearing the simple T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.
"I haven't been there for a while. Couldn't be bothered, since Zeus's still there looking after business. I've been in the states, catching up on the culture," Athena answered. She too, was holding a dish of ambrosia and was eating it as pleasurely as Belldandy was at the table. "How is your relationship with the mortal Keiichi?"
"Fine, but I'm worried about him. I should be going back as soon as I finish this delicious meal…which is right now" Belldandy said, putting the dish away to the side so the servants could deal with it.
"Oh come _on_. He can take care of himself. He's a mature adult, is he not? Come, come. Let's talk about what we've been doing since we last met," Athena said, dragging Belldandy into a heated discussion.
Every Greek immortal who was in Heaven had joined in the discussion, which lasted for a couple of hours—which meant that Keiichi was to be alone for an entire week. Time went faster on the mortal realm, but Belldandy was enjoying every single minute of it. However, Keiichi was forced to return to his old ways of getting his stomach satisfied: instant noodles and take-out food.
*****
Brett and Urd came back from their vacation to find the temple a total disaster area (chaos, really). They found Keiichi still working on the bike (rather unhappily) but they could find no trace of Belldandy or Skuld. Urd, quite angry at Belldandy for leaving Keiichi that long, stormed to heaven and broke the discussion by literally dragging Belldandy back to the mortal realm while the others watched with wide eyes. It was the first time Belldandy ever apologized to Keiichi. Keiichi was just glad he wouldn't have to eat another meal of instant noodles and take-out food.
*****
Back in Bali, the two young and gorgeous goddesses were busy getting the perfect tan as well as talking about their own relationships with the other. However, some male mortals had the nerve of blocking the precious sun rays so they could ask them out. They were dealt with and turned into coconuts (literally). Anyone walking by them would wonder why there were so many coconuts next to them and thought that they were going nuts. [note: no puns intended]
"So what do you think I should do, Rhi?" Skuld asked as she looked at the other goddess, turning towards her.
"Well, if you have enough boy problems, find a girl," Rhi said, grinning. Skuld laughed at this notion. It wasn't a bad idea, really, but Skuld wasn't sure she could accept that just yet.
"You think that's easy? I don't think I've fallen in love with one yet!" Skuld said.
"Tell you what: why don't I go back to the temple with you as your girlfriend and you've got all your problems solved," Rhi said in a small voice. She was getting tired of this discussion and she wanted to have a nap before she had to turn over.
"…That's not funny. By the way, who _was_ that girl you were in love with?" Skuld asked Rhi. There was no response from her. Rhi seemed to have fallen asleep. Skuld sighed, shrugged, and went back to reading her quantum-mechanics book. She had a lot of catching up on her reading to do. There was no knowing how much the mortals had advanced already if she didn't keep up with what they knew and discovered.
*****
"Skuld, how could you do this to me?" Kenji moaned outloud to no one in particular. He was upset, maybe even angry that Skuld had left without saying goodbye to him. After all, he _was_ her friend, wasn't he?
"Kenji? Who or what is Skuld?" the voice of his mother said right behind him. Kenji froze and sighed. It was definitely _not_ a good week.
"She's this girl I met, Mom, at Keiichi's temple. She's the sister of Keiichi's girlfriend, who often stops by the temple," Kenji said, hoping that his mother would believe just this one lie.
"Really? What's she like? How come you sound so sad about her?" Kenji's mother said, sitting down next to him on the table, where he was supposed to be doing his homework.
"She's nice and pretty. Intelligent, too. Her sister says she doesn't know where she is. I'm kind of worried about her," Kenji admitted, blushing. His mother smiled inwardly at this. *I hope she's a nice Japanese girl who'll be a good housewife…*
"She'll be back. After all, there's still you around," his mother said smiling to him. He smiled back and knew at the back of his head that she was probably right.
***** END OF CHAPTER 3 *****
'Till next time, au revoir!FOOTNOTES
Final comments!: The reason why Kenji's mother wants Kenji to associate with a Japanese girl is because of the stereotype that Skuld probably will never understand how a Japanese housewife should be because she is a gaijin. Kenji's mother, in many ways, is pretty much old-fashioned. Sorry if this offends some people, but some Japanese _do_ think like that. I figured that Belldandy was probably bored to hell just going with Keiichi and wasn't willing to admit it until Skuld left to be alone. I don't think she's being out of character. Rather, this situation is more realistic in my opinion. Valkries are also goddesses, but since they are associated with death mortals have thought them to be angels of death or something like that--hence the different name. There _are_ such beings in the Viking myths although they might not be godesses. I like the way Rhi keeps trying to avoid Skuld's questions about her affections towards the mysterious person...and yes, she _will_ be revealed in the next chapter.
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