Disclaimer: I do not own "Love Hina" or its characters.
Save Keitaro
D.I.D.
To Urashima Keitaro's utter surprise, a small and discreet switchblade appeared in his hand. Like an early Christmas present, Keitaro savored the touch of cold steel before slipping it into his pocket. As usual, Ken regained his control over Keitaro and forced him to his notepad again, his hands destined to make obscene observations on paper in excruciating detail. Every time Ken's power slipped, he wrote down other one of his symptoms. By now, Keitaro accepted his sentence with polite resignation. Now, he had something to work with, something to plan his escape with. From one moment, he had gone from utter hopelessness to the brink of incredible confidence. He wrote that down in the notepad. [Mood swings].
/Do your worst, Naru,/ As Ken turned to leave the nightmare version of Naru and visit the other domains, Keitaro pawed the switchblade. /Because, now you will play by my rules./
"Oh, before I leave," Ken turned around and looked at Keitaro. "[Give me the pencil.]" Denied a will of his own, Keitaro mindlessly handed Ken the pencil. Ken winced in pain as something like static electricity flew through the pencil and connected with him. Keitaro could feel it too, but torture had numbed this lesser sensation of pain a great deal. "Just in case you get any enterprising ideas." His swagger had returned to his step. As Ken left the room, Keitaro released the blade and slipped it back into his pocket.
The sound of the switchblade opening caught the nightmare's attention. Keitaro's blood pressure peaked as his eyes met the gaze of the inhuman nightmare Naru. For a fraction of second, he feared that Naru had grown suspicious of him. If she felt even the slightest cause for suspicion, Naru could press her hand against his forehead and open out his subconscious mind and review any major decisions he had made in the last twenty minutes. Surely, him causing a switchblade to appear would end up on the top of that short list of things he had done of his free own will in the last twenty minutes.
Fortunately, Naru had most definitely interpreted the vaguely heard sound as some kind of whimper Keitaro had generated and saw no real reason to waste time plunging into the subconscious for answers. In painfully obvious pride in herself, this Naru must have patted herself on the back for bestowing so much fear on Keitaro through torture.
Frankly, Keitaro no longer feared pain, the human heart and mind when brought together could handle impossible amounts of physical pain and suffering. But his mental defenses hovered over critical mass. If the Nightmare Naru tricked him into one more debate about Narusegawa's questionable moral values, Keitaro knew he would certainly snap under the pressure and renounce his faith in Narusegawa. Then, Narusegawa Naru would never know the full depth of his love for her.
/No, not Narusegawa,/ Keitaro told himself mentally. /I can't let that happen. I must free myself from this prison./ Naru winded up a punch, Keitaro's left hand dove in after the opened switchblade.
"So, where did we leave off? Oh, yes, punching you into a bloody pulp." Naru materialized a pair of spiked gloves and a stuffed sock. Naru carefully wrapped her hands in the gloves and straightened out the brass knuckles attached to the gloves with surgical care and preparation. Naru shoved the sock in Keitaro's mouth. "You might want to bite down on that. I plan to make this one hurt." As Naru's punch moved through the air between herself and his face, Keitaro lunged the switchblade at Naru and ducked the path of the punch.
Keitaro threw his hands out of the way as the blade impacted against the surface of Naru's neck, jamming the full length of the blade into her throat. A look of exquisite pain emerging over Naru's face told him that he had made the correct assumption. He could not kill a mental image, major injury could definitely slow them down for awhile. Feeling a few quarts of adrendaline pulse through his, Keitaro reached for the blade that he had impaled through Naru and twisted it out of out her throat sideways. That move left an ugly gash along her throat that released blood from it the way a fountain released water. At the verge of fainting from the sight of blood, Keitaro flinched as he felt the cold steel penetrate the soft membrane of Naru's left eye and burrow into her brain.
Too afraid to remove the blade, Keitaro bolted away leaving it buried in Naru's skull. As he ran, he spit the sock out of his mouth. He opened his notepad, made a pencil out of air and wrote down other symptom. [Tendency toward violence].
The nightmare tore the blade from her eye and launched it at Keitaro. With a burst of inspiration, Keitaro thought of having his armor with him as the blade connected with his shoulder. In seconds, the knife had bounced off a plate of armor that appeared above his his shoulder.
/Anything I wish for,/ Keitaro realized as he remember that he had wished for a switchblade so he could force an escape from this pit of all his fears, real and imagined. After he made the wish, it had finally showed up in his hands and gave his plans a new direction. Sure, the new direction meant causing unimaginable bloodshed, but Keitaro needed to escape this place with his love for Narusegawa intact. He could not risk losing that valuable piece of emotional luggage.
Now dressed in head-to-toe in body armour, Keitaro summoned swords and preceeded to improvise a couple sword techniques from things he had seen Aoyama Motoko do. Few of his fears had any experience with swords, because Keitaro did not fear swords like normal people. In the real world, a sword meant nothing more to him than the blunt end of a brittle branch. Only one had any skill, a nightmare version of his own aunt Haruka. As she attacked Keitaro with effortless fluidity, tears streamed down her eyes. "Please, Keitaro, stop it. I don't want to hurt you." In his moment of hesitation, Haruka slashed through his armour, tearing up his right arm. Before he had entered this bleak homeworld of all his nightmares, nothing had ever broken skin on Keitaro.
Keitaro hated this place for tearing open his skin as well as his heart. As he reached the edge of the domain, he started tossing bits and pieces of his body armour at the other nightmares. He had a couple bottles of sake materialized out of nowhere and started breaking them against the floor of the dimly lit cooridors.
As a pair of match materialized in Keitaro's hands, he lit a single match and satisfied himself by watching the look of fear emerge on the faces of the former conveyors of fear. In swift and graceful hand movements, Keitaro pressed the match against the matchbox and let it all fall from his hand, sparking the fire. He stared in perverse pleasure as the flames consumed the nightmares in a fiery inferno. Keitaro slowly back out of the domain, watching them coil in agony. Bright light engulfed Keitaro and carried him out of the domain.
Sure, they will definitely come back and seek revenge for his attack, but Keitaro did not care so much anymore. Deep inside him, he knew his nightmares would never enjoy the level of control they had over him before. The surge of adrendaline made Keitaro jumpy. Realizing he had used one of the sake bottles to wet down the nightmare cooridors, Keitaro almost decided to open the bottle and take a drink. But before he could open the bottle in his hands, Keitaro realized that the blood from Nightmare Naru had stained his clothing, allowing them to cross the barrier. As the Nightmare Naru caught fire, so did the blood embedded in his clothing. In seconds, the fire had spread to every inch of his clothes.
On impulse, Keitaro tore off all his clothes and started trying to extinguish the flames with his feet. In the preternaturally fast fire, his clothes had transformed into ashes except the notepad. Apparently, these the great and powerful Ken had materialized it, it had his attributes of invulnerability. Keitaro did not worry about his apparent lack of clothes. As with the switchblade, the matches, the sword, and the body armour, Keitaro could just summon more clothing.
"Clothes," Keitaro announced holding out his hands, expecting a tuxedo and fresh pair of underwear and socks to materialize out of nowhere. Nothing happened. "Clothes." This time he wished for normal clothes back, nothing fancy. Still nothing happened. "Towel." Again, nothing happened. As Keitaro stood out there feeling annoyed and a bit ripped off, he realized his possible mistake. "Oh, well, I guess I can't make things show up outside the domain." In his logic, it made even sense. None of the other nightmares could do that. Not even Ken himself to make things appear outside the domains, so why should he? Still, Keitaro did not like his current state of affairs.
Keitaro reached what he considered a safe distance. He checked himself over. His right arm had regenerated to perfect condition. As he now turned his attention to his surroundings, he looked up to see the tablets of self-image. From here, he knew where to find his hopes and ambitions. Right now, after hours of torture, Keitaro felt he deserved a remainder what he had endured all that torture for.
Keitaro stood up and walked to his hopes and dreams. Set up to look like the Hinata-sou supported on a cloud, Keitaro felt warm thoughts wrap his nude body seeing his home again. Once inside the domain of hopes, Keitaro could make things show up again. A jolt of energy surged through his body as he arrived inside the domain. As he returned to the sanctity of this pleasant domain, he had made a neatly folded pile of clothes appear in one hand, securing the bottle of sake and the notepad in the other.
"Hey, Keitaro, thanks for the sake, but I can make my own, thank you." Keitaro looked up and saw Kitsune standing inches from his face. "And other thing, you better put your clothes back on quick. I might make your girlfriend jealous." She just appeared out of nowhere. Kitsune kept staring at Keitaro. Keitaro nodded. It probably looked a lot different from second-hand reports then it did in person. Either way, Keitaro recognized the path of Kitsune's eyes and guarded that part of his body from prying eyes with the notepad. Thank god, the fire had not burned this.
Another voice came out of nowhere. "Keitaro, don't listen to her." The voice then spoke to Kitsune. "Kitsune, don't you dare call me his girlfriend again." The voice returned to him. "And Keitaro, if I see you naked in the same room with Kitsune, I will have to kill you."
Keitaro slammed the sake bottle against the floor, causing it to split open. As Kitsune struggled to collected the spilled sake off the room, the words of Nightmare Naru entered his mind. /How well do I know her?/
Keitaro sniffed angrily as he hurriedly dressed himself. "Even in my hopes, Naru treats me like a nobody." Kitsune shot a death stare at Keitaro. As her best friend, she automatically resented any foul comments directed at Naru, even the true ones.
"What, Kitsune? Have I lied? Do you know what I have endured for the last twenty minutes." Kitsune nodded. How could a mental image possibly know these things? "Torture. I spent that time receiving torture from a monster who wore Naru's face like a mask. It said horrible things about her and I said the exact opposite every step of the way, but I can't do that any longer. That girl, that Naru needs some serious therapy." Keitaro paused as tears started to stream down his cheek. "And perhaps so do I, because I love her in spite her endless supply of beatings. But if she can't figure how she feels about me, I guess I should just admit defeat and move on." Keitaro turned and spoke into the wall where Naru's voice came from. "You hear that, Naru, I love you, and I admit defeat. You have won. I guess I should leave then."
Urashima Keitaro had finally grown up. He still loved Narusegawa, but he realized that no relationship could ever bloom between them as long as she visited his every kind gesture and honest mistake with hurricane-kicks and super-punches. No, what he had said both horrified and moved Kitsune to tears, but he meant every word of it. Inner child had found an opportunity to grow up and he had taken it.
Of course, he only confessed his feelings to a bunch of mental images. As soon as he entered the free-fall meditation again, Keitaro would return to his physical body and tell the real Narusegawa how he felt. Yeah, some things, like the promise, needed patience and determination to succeed in. But, no amount of idle time would shake Naru's insatiable need to punish him for his every misdeed. As Nightmare Naru taught him, the things he feared would just keep pushing him until he pushed back. This time, he would push back and accept the responsibility for whatever happened because of it. Keitaro entered the free-fall meditation pose and prepared to return home.
*****
Narusegawa Naru hated crying as much as she pretending to hate Keitaro, but she could not help doing either now. Besides, she liked playing this game of romantic hide-and-seek, hoping and knowing that the compassionate and unyielding Keitaro would find her soft side underneath this paper-thin shell of violence and insults. If she would believe this mental image Keitaro as indication of what the real Keitaro felt, the real Keitaro had just ended the game. If her soft side did not come out of her hiding place soon, he would call it quits and move on with his life. After all the rejection, Keitaro had reached her level of maturity in dealing with these feelings and she hated him for it.
Swallowing her pride and wiping away these tears, Narusegawa Naru stepped into the room and found a fully-dressed Keitaro sitting a full lotus position and a panicked Kitsune trying to gather spilled sake off the floor. "Keitaro." Keitaro turned around.
"Kitsune, could you excuse us?" Kitsune gathered the broken pieces of the sake bottle and carried them away like body bags. Even when she had the ability to make as much sake as she wanted, the sight of a broken sake bottle unhinged poor Kitsune.
As Kitsune left the room, Narusegawa sat down on the couch. Naru took a deep breath. "Did you really mean that, what you said?"
Keitaro laughed. Hearing any Keitaro laugh again after seeing his cold breathless body brought a smile to Naru's face. "No. That comment about serious therapy stuff I said out of spite, I didn't mean it, Naru."
Naru could safely establish that she had spoken to a pretty accurate portrayal of Keitaro. No mental image of Keitaro beforehand had a skull this thick. "No, idiot. I meant the other thing. Did you mean the other thing about loving me?"
Keitaro turned his head and looked Naru in the eyes. He did not have his glasses on and Naru always said he looked cute without his glasses. She still meant it. From the look in Keitaro's eyes, he just remembered the other thing. "Oh yeah, I meant that, Naru. Every time, that nightmare image of you gave me a point I could not argue against, I just told her I loved you and she stopped arguing ... and continued torturing me."
Narusegawa Naru could comprehend everything she had just heard, but it hurt to think that Keitaro had a nightmare image of herself buried somewhere in his mind. A lot of things hurt when stop to recognize the pain. Naru had nothing better to do, but feel the pain. She had watched earlier a hope where Keitaro had confessed his feelings to her and she had confessed her feelings to him.
Just as Naru had a chance to witness Keitaro kiss her for once, suddenly a bright light swallowed up the scene and forced her out of the room. She felt cheated. If she had to recreate with this mental image of Keitaro that scene's intended ending, she would do it. What did she have to lose? When she returned to the real world, she could go back to pretending to hate him. What did she have to lose except a great deal of undue tension?
"I want to play a game with you." Naru stood up and paced a circle around Keitaro. As expected, Keitaro's nose started to bleed. "No, not that kind of game, idiot. I give you a what-if question and you have to tell me honestly what you would do?" Keitaro nodded. "If, hypothetically, I told you I loved you as much as you loved me," Naru needed a moment to regain her breath, "what would you do?"
"Naru, I would probably start dancing around like an idiot, shouting at the top of my lungs that you loved me," Keitaro looked at Naru. Suddenly, the sun quickly retreated below the horizon line and night fell on this Hinata-sou sitting on a cloud. According to her watch, they had fifteen minutes left to save the real Keitaro and Su Kaolla expected them to return with ten minutes left. "Then we would enjoy an awkward silence and we might get carried away and it might lead to something like this."
Keitaro flipped open the notepad in his hand. Naru's eyes bulged out of their sockets as he looked at what he had written. She snatched the notepad from his hands and read it through, making sure her eyes had not deceived her. "Would you actually consider doing any of this with me?" Naru asked, making sure Keitaro caught the skeptical tone in her voice. Naru did not know any of part of Keitaro that had this kind of daring.
Keitaro nodded solemnly. "Some part of me would. Some part of me would consider doing that and much more with you." Keitaro turned his face away from Naru, as if he said something he felt truly guilty about. "You must think of me as a real pervert, now."
"No, I don't, but what do you mean some part of you would?" Naru hated cryptic answers. No one can assign certain responsibilities to a part of themselves and then assigned the rest to another part. She felt unconfortable holding Keitaro's mental images to a double standard, but she understood better why she had brought pain and suffering to Keitaro's life. This duality really left people feeling alienated and worthless.
Naru got sight of something else on the notepad. "Wait a minute." He had some other stuff written in the margins. " 'Depression, suicidal tendencies, insomnia, night terrors, sleep-walking, panic attacks, alcohol and drug abuse, headaches, amnesias, time loss, trances, and 'out of body experiences,' mood swings, tendencies toward violence.' What does all this mean?"
"A list of symptoms, Naru. I can see it now." Keitaro spread out his hands as if he to reveal an imaginary poster in front of him. " 'Manager of Hinata-sou has finally lost his mind.' 'Manager finally took a dive off the deep end.' 'Manager takes a mental vacation from the real world.' I can still hear her crying in my nightmares. Haruka broke down into tears when Ken took over my body. I had never seen Haruka cry before. It scared me. I made Haruka cry. Me, Urashima Keitaro, made my strong poker face aunt, Urashima Haruka, cry a river of tears."
A chill ran down Naru's spine. Thanks to her mother's obsessive fear of mental diseases and disorders, Naru knew an unusual amount of psychology trivia. His symptoms and descriptions of someone else taking over his body bore an unsettling resemblance to D.I.D, Dissociative Identity Disorder. The psychology community had renamed that after it found the term Multiple Personality Disorder misleading.
People diagnosed with this disorder needed years of extensive therapy to get over it. Naru could tell that Keitaro did not have years to reach the bottom of this well of mental tribulation. He needed answers and fast. So he must have thought of the meditation practices of Aoyama Motoko and must have figured that only this free-fall meditation had enough power to condense years of therapy into a single night. Naru blushed at how much Keitaro's love for her must have fought against his deteoriating mental state. People with Dissociative Identity Disorder usually lash out at the person who caused them the most pain and suffering, namely herself. She also continued to blush as she realized the truth. She had just confessed her feelings to the real Keitaro, not merely a mental image created by Keitaro, but the real person, Urashima Keitaro.
Keitaro sat in meditation and looked back up at Naru. "I can't do it." Naru's heart sank the moment he spoke those words. The free-fall meditation had brought him into this place and only through the free-fall meditation could Keitaro or anyone here leave this place. If Keitaro could not use the meditation, no one would leave and everyone here would die.
*****
Thirteen minutes left. Maehara Shinobu and Su Kaolla sat in chains as Ken grimaced at the fire damage the "nightmare cooridors" as he called them, had sustained. Ken had walked into the conscience domain where Kaolla said she would find threatened to harm Keitaro and she could not help but cry out, "Don't hurt, Sempai, please." In seconds, Ken pounched on her and carried her out of the pearly white hallways of the conscience into the dismal cooridors to this horrible nightmare realm.
Shinobu left no malice for what Kaolla had done. If something had threatened to do that, Shinobu would have told them anything they wanted to hear. As much as she loved Sempai, she did not consider herself ready to do anything reserved for two consenting adults in complete privacy. Maehara Shinobu needed time to grow up and possibly get over Keitaro someday.
"I will make Keitaro suffer for this, but for right now, I have a treat for you, Shinobu." Ken reached into a box and pulled out a horrible animal. Its cockroach legs and long hard-shelled tail whipped back and forth. Its manta-ray-shaped upper body quivered in protest from having someone peel him away from his home.
"Once, this thing latches onto you, you will experience your precious Sempai in ways you only imagined." Shinobu blushed at what he said. For a moment, he worried that this Ken had some form of telepathy, but Shinobu suppressed that thought for good cause. If he had telepathy, he could have read the information out of Kaolla's mind, instead having to blackmail it out of her with that horrendous threat. Still, that comment felt like something torn straight from the pages of her mind.
"Now, for Kaolla, this meant torture, but for you, you might find this quite pleasurable." No, she would not. Keitaro belonged to Naru and vice versa. She could not in good conscience experience that with Keitaro. Still Ken did not listen. In seconds, the creature latched onto the back of her head. Shinobu found herself in a room with her Sempai, saying things she wanted to say to Keitaro all this time and having him reply in ways she always hoped she would hear. She could see the world with a newfound beauty and grace.
It almost felt like her own fantasy until things turned ugly. A bright flash of light escaped between their lips and filled the room. A glint of lust shone in her Sempai and she could not stop her own body from embracing his. Tears streamed from her eyes as she navigated every inch of her Sempai, doing the unthinkable and unforgivable onto him and having the unthinkable and unforgivable done onto her. She felt sick and ready to vomit, but her body would not participate in her disgust. Blood leaked from her mouth as her teeth tore her tongue to ribbons. "Please stop this." She finally managed to say as the dream Keitaro prepared to bring a stirring conclusion to this parade of obscenities. A look of fear and begging for forgiveness came over the dream Keitaro's face. Shinobu knew only one answer she could give his request. "No, Keitaro, I can never forgive you."
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Save Keitaro
D.I.D.
To Urashima Keitaro's utter surprise, a small and discreet switchblade appeared in his hand. Like an early Christmas present, Keitaro savored the touch of cold steel before slipping it into his pocket. As usual, Ken regained his control over Keitaro and forced him to his notepad again, his hands destined to make obscene observations on paper in excruciating detail. Every time Ken's power slipped, he wrote down other one of his symptoms. By now, Keitaro accepted his sentence with polite resignation. Now, he had something to work with, something to plan his escape with. From one moment, he had gone from utter hopelessness to the brink of incredible confidence. He wrote that down in the notepad. [Mood swings].
/Do your worst, Naru,/ As Ken turned to leave the nightmare version of Naru and visit the other domains, Keitaro pawed the switchblade. /Because, now you will play by my rules./
"Oh, before I leave," Ken turned around and looked at Keitaro. "[Give me the pencil.]" Denied a will of his own, Keitaro mindlessly handed Ken the pencil. Ken winced in pain as something like static electricity flew through the pencil and connected with him. Keitaro could feel it too, but torture had numbed this lesser sensation of pain a great deal. "Just in case you get any enterprising ideas." His swagger had returned to his step. As Ken left the room, Keitaro released the blade and slipped it back into his pocket.
The sound of the switchblade opening caught the nightmare's attention. Keitaro's blood pressure peaked as his eyes met the gaze of the inhuman nightmare Naru. For a fraction of second, he feared that Naru had grown suspicious of him. If she felt even the slightest cause for suspicion, Naru could press her hand against his forehead and open out his subconscious mind and review any major decisions he had made in the last twenty minutes. Surely, him causing a switchblade to appear would end up on the top of that short list of things he had done of his free own will in the last twenty minutes.
Fortunately, Naru had most definitely interpreted the vaguely heard sound as some kind of whimper Keitaro had generated and saw no real reason to waste time plunging into the subconscious for answers. In painfully obvious pride in herself, this Naru must have patted herself on the back for bestowing so much fear on Keitaro through torture.
Frankly, Keitaro no longer feared pain, the human heart and mind when brought together could handle impossible amounts of physical pain and suffering. But his mental defenses hovered over critical mass. If the Nightmare Naru tricked him into one more debate about Narusegawa's questionable moral values, Keitaro knew he would certainly snap under the pressure and renounce his faith in Narusegawa. Then, Narusegawa Naru would never know the full depth of his love for her.
/No, not Narusegawa,/ Keitaro told himself mentally. /I can't let that happen. I must free myself from this prison./ Naru winded up a punch, Keitaro's left hand dove in after the opened switchblade.
"So, where did we leave off? Oh, yes, punching you into a bloody pulp." Naru materialized a pair of spiked gloves and a stuffed sock. Naru carefully wrapped her hands in the gloves and straightened out the brass knuckles attached to the gloves with surgical care and preparation. Naru shoved the sock in Keitaro's mouth. "You might want to bite down on that. I plan to make this one hurt." As Naru's punch moved through the air between herself and his face, Keitaro lunged the switchblade at Naru and ducked the path of the punch.
Keitaro threw his hands out of the way as the blade impacted against the surface of Naru's neck, jamming the full length of the blade into her throat. A look of exquisite pain emerging over Naru's face told him that he had made the correct assumption. He could not kill a mental image, major injury could definitely slow them down for awhile. Feeling a few quarts of adrendaline pulse through his, Keitaro reached for the blade that he had impaled through Naru and twisted it out of out her throat sideways. That move left an ugly gash along her throat that released blood from it the way a fountain released water. At the verge of fainting from the sight of blood, Keitaro flinched as he felt the cold steel penetrate the soft membrane of Naru's left eye and burrow into her brain.
Too afraid to remove the blade, Keitaro bolted away leaving it buried in Naru's skull. As he ran, he spit the sock out of his mouth. He opened his notepad, made a pencil out of air and wrote down other symptom. [Tendency toward violence].
The nightmare tore the blade from her eye and launched it at Keitaro. With a burst of inspiration, Keitaro thought of having his armor with him as the blade connected with his shoulder. In seconds, the knife had bounced off a plate of armor that appeared above his his shoulder.
/Anything I wish for,/ Keitaro realized as he remember that he had wished for a switchblade so he could force an escape from this pit of all his fears, real and imagined. After he made the wish, it had finally showed up in his hands and gave his plans a new direction. Sure, the new direction meant causing unimaginable bloodshed, but Keitaro needed to escape this place with his love for Narusegawa intact. He could not risk losing that valuable piece of emotional luggage.
Now dressed in head-to-toe in body armour, Keitaro summoned swords and preceeded to improvise a couple sword techniques from things he had seen Aoyama Motoko do. Few of his fears had any experience with swords, because Keitaro did not fear swords like normal people. In the real world, a sword meant nothing more to him than the blunt end of a brittle branch. Only one had any skill, a nightmare version of his own aunt Haruka. As she attacked Keitaro with effortless fluidity, tears streamed down her eyes. "Please, Keitaro, stop it. I don't want to hurt you." In his moment of hesitation, Haruka slashed through his armour, tearing up his right arm. Before he had entered this bleak homeworld of all his nightmares, nothing had ever broken skin on Keitaro.
Keitaro hated this place for tearing open his skin as well as his heart. As he reached the edge of the domain, he started tossing bits and pieces of his body armour at the other nightmares. He had a couple bottles of sake materialized out of nowhere and started breaking them against the floor of the dimly lit cooridors.
As a pair of match materialized in Keitaro's hands, he lit a single match and satisfied himself by watching the look of fear emerge on the faces of the former conveyors of fear. In swift and graceful hand movements, Keitaro pressed the match against the matchbox and let it all fall from his hand, sparking the fire. He stared in perverse pleasure as the flames consumed the nightmares in a fiery inferno. Keitaro slowly back out of the domain, watching them coil in agony. Bright light engulfed Keitaro and carried him out of the domain.
Sure, they will definitely come back and seek revenge for his attack, but Keitaro did not care so much anymore. Deep inside him, he knew his nightmares would never enjoy the level of control they had over him before. The surge of adrendaline made Keitaro jumpy. Realizing he had used one of the sake bottles to wet down the nightmare cooridors, Keitaro almost decided to open the bottle and take a drink. But before he could open the bottle in his hands, Keitaro realized that the blood from Nightmare Naru had stained his clothing, allowing them to cross the barrier. As the Nightmare Naru caught fire, so did the blood embedded in his clothing. In seconds, the fire had spread to every inch of his clothes.
On impulse, Keitaro tore off all his clothes and started trying to extinguish the flames with his feet. In the preternaturally fast fire, his clothes had transformed into ashes except the notepad. Apparently, these the great and powerful Ken had materialized it, it had his attributes of invulnerability. Keitaro did not worry about his apparent lack of clothes. As with the switchblade, the matches, the sword, and the body armour, Keitaro could just summon more clothing.
"Clothes," Keitaro announced holding out his hands, expecting a tuxedo and fresh pair of underwear and socks to materialize out of nowhere. Nothing happened. "Clothes." This time he wished for normal clothes back, nothing fancy. Still nothing happened. "Towel." Again, nothing happened. As Keitaro stood out there feeling annoyed and a bit ripped off, he realized his possible mistake. "Oh, well, I guess I can't make things show up outside the domain." In his logic, it made even sense. None of the other nightmares could do that. Not even Ken himself to make things appear outside the domains, so why should he? Still, Keitaro did not like his current state of affairs.
Keitaro reached what he considered a safe distance. He checked himself over. His right arm had regenerated to perfect condition. As he now turned his attention to his surroundings, he looked up to see the tablets of self-image. From here, he knew where to find his hopes and ambitions. Right now, after hours of torture, Keitaro felt he deserved a remainder what he had endured all that torture for.
Keitaro stood up and walked to his hopes and dreams. Set up to look like the Hinata-sou supported on a cloud, Keitaro felt warm thoughts wrap his nude body seeing his home again. Once inside the domain of hopes, Keitaro could make things show up again. A jolt of energy surged through his body as he arrived inside the domain. As he returned to the sanctity of this pleasant domain, he had made a neatly folded pile of clothes appear in one hand, securing the bottle of sake and the notepad in the other.
"Hey, Keitaro, thanks for the sake, but I can make my own, thank you." Keitaro looked up and saw Kitsune standing inches from his face. "And other thing, you better put your clothes back on quick. I might make your girlfriend jealous." She just appeared out of nowhere. Kitsune kept staring at Keitaro. Keitaro nodded. It probably looked a lot different from second-hand reports then it did in person. Either way, Keitaro recognized the path of Kitsune's eyes and guarded that part of his body from prying eyes with the notepad. Thank god, the fire had not burned this.
Another voice came out of nowhere. "Keitaro, don't listen to her." The voice then spoke to Kitsune. "Kitsune, don't you dare call me his girlfriend again." The voice returned to him. "And Keitaro, if I see you naked in the same room with Kitsune, I will have to kill you."
Keitaro slammed the sake bottle against the floor, causing it to split open. As Kitsune struggled to collected the spilled sake off the room, the words of Nightmare Naru entered his mind. /How well do I know her?/
Keitaro sniffed angrily as he hurriedly dressed himself. "Even in my hopes, Naru treats me like a nobody." Kitsune shot a death stare at Keitaro. As her best friend, she automatically resented any foul comments directed at Naru, even the true ones.
"What, Kitsune? Have I lied? Do you know what I have endured for the last twenty minutes." Kitsune nodded. How could a mental image possibly know these things? "Torture. I spent that time receiving torture from a monster who wore Naru's face like a mask. It said horrible things about her and I said the exact opposite every step of the way, but I can't do that any longer. That girl, that Naru needs some serious therapy." Keitaro paused as tears started to stream down his cheek. "And perhaps so do I, because I love her in spite her endless supply of beatings. But if she can't figure how she feels about me, I guess I should just admit defeat and move on." Keitaro turned and spoke into the wall where Naru's voice came from. "You hear that, Naru, I love you, and I admit defeat. You have won. I guess I should leave then."
Urashima Keitaro had finally grown up. He still loved Narusegawa, but he realized that no relationship could ever bloom between them as long as she visited his every kind gesture and honest mistake with hurricane-kicks and super-punches. No, what he had said both horrified and moved Kitsune to tears, but he meant every word of it. Inner child had found an opportunity to grow up and he had taken it.
Of course, he only confessed his feelings to a bunch of mental images. As soon as he entered the free-fall meditation again, Keitaro would return to his physical body and tell the real Narusegawa how he felt. Yeah, some things, like the promise, needed patience and determination to succeed in. But, no amount of idle time would shake Naru's insatiable need to punish him for his every misdeed. As Nightmare Naru taught him, the things he feared would just keep pushing him until he pushed back. This time, he would push back and accept the responsibility for whatever happened because of it. Keitaro entered the free-fall meditation pose and prepared to return home.
*****
Narusegawa Naru hated crying as much as she pretending to hate Keitaro, but she could not help doing either now. Besides, she liked playing this game of romantic hide-and-seek, hoping and knowing that the compassionate and unyielding Keitaro would find her soft side underneath this paper-thin shell of violence and insults. If she would believe this mental image Keitaro as indication of what the real Keitaro felt, the real Keitaro had just ended the game. If her soft side did not come out of her hiding place soon, he would call it quits and move on with his life. After all the rejection, Keitaro had reached her level of maturity in dealing with these feelings and she hated him for it.
Swallowing her pride and wiping away these tears, Narusegawa Naru stepped into the room and found a fully-dressed Keitaro sitting a full lotus position and a panicked Kitsune trying to gather spilled sake off the floor. "Keitaro." Keitaro turned around.
"Kitsune, could you excuse us?" Kitsune gathered the broken pieces of the sake bottle and carried them away like body bags. Even when she had the ability to make as much sake as she wanted, the sight of a broken sake bottle unhinged poor Kitsune.
As Kitsune left the room, Narusegawa sat down on the couch. Naru took a deep breath. "Did you really mean that, what you said?"
Keitaro laughed. Hearing any Keitaro laugh again after seeing his cold breathless body brought a smile to Naru's face. "No. That comment about serious therapy stuff I said out of spite, I didn't mean it, Naru."
Naru could safely establish that she had spoken to a pretty accurate portrayal of Keitaro. No mental image of Keitaro beforehand had a skull this thick. "No, idiot. I meant the other thing. Did you mean the other thing about loving me?"
Keitaro turned his head and looked Naru in the eyes. He did not have his glasses on and Naru always said he looked cute without his glasses. She still meant it. From the look in Keitaro's eyes, he just remembered the other thing. "Oh yeah, I meant that, Naru. Every time, that nightmare image of you gave me a point I could not argue against, I just told her I loved you and she stopped arguing ... and continued torturing me."
Narusegawa Naru could comprehend everything she had just heard, but it hurt to think that Keitaro had a nightmare image of herself buried somewhere in his mind. A lot of things hurt when stop to recognize the pain. Naru had nothing better to do, but feel the pain. She had watched earlier a hope where Keitaro had confessed his feelings to her and she had confessed her feelings to him.
Just as Naru had a chance to witness Keitaro kiss her for once, suddenly a bright light swallowed up the scene and forced her out of the room. She felt cheated. If she had to recreate with this mental image of Keitaro that scene's intended ending, she would do it. What did she have to lose? When she returned to the real world, she could go back to pretending to hate him. What did she have to lose except a great deal of undue tension?
"I want to play a game with you." Naru stood up and paced a circle around Keitaro. As expected, Keitaro's nose started to bleed. "No, not that kind of game, idiot. I give you a what-if question and you have to tell me honestly what you would do?" Keitaro nodded. "If, hypothetically, I told you I loved you as much as you loved me," Naru needed a moment to regain her breath, "what would you do?"
"Naru, I would probably start dancing around like an idiot, shouting at the top of my lungs that you loved me," Keitaro looked at Naru. Suddenly, the sun quickly retreated below the horizon line and night fell on this Hinata-sou sitting on a cloud. According to her watch, they had fifteen minutes left to save the real Keitaro and Su Kaolla expected them to return with ten minutes left. "Then we would enjoy an awkward silence and we might get carried away and it might lead to something like this."
Keitaro flipped open the notepad in his hand. Naru's eyes bulged out of their sockets as he looked at what he had written. She snatched the notepad from his hands and read it through, making sure her eyes had not deceived her. "Would you actually consider doing any of this with me?" Naru asked, making sure Keitaro caught the skeptical tone in her voice. Naru did not know any of part of Keitaro that had this kind of daring.
Keitaro nodded solemnly. "Some part of me would. Some part of me would consider doing that and much more with you." Keitaro turned his face away from Naru, as if he said something he felt truly guilty about. "You must think of me as a real pervert, now."
"No, I don't, but what do you mean some part of you would?" Naru hated cryptic answers. No one can assign certain responsibilities to a part of themselves and then assigned the rest to another part. She felt unconfortable holding Keitaro's mental images to a double standard, but she understood better why she had brought pain and suffering to Keitaro's life. This duality really left people feeling alienated and worthless.
Naru got sight of something else on the notepad. "Wait a minute." He had some other stuff written in the margins. " 'Depression, suicidal tendencies, insomnia, night terrors, sleep-walking, panic attacks, alcohol and drug abuse, headaches, amnesias, time loss, trances, and 'out of body experiences,' mood swings, tendencies toward violence.' What does all this mean?"
"A list of symptoms, Naru. I can see it now." Keitaro spread out his hands as if he to reveal an imaginary poster in front of him. " 'Manager of Hinata-sou has finally lost his mind.' 'Manager finally took a dive off the deep end.' 'Manager takes a mental vacation from the real world.' I can still hear her crying in my nightmares. Haruka broke down into tears when Ken took over my body. I had never seen Haruka cry before. It scared me. I made Haruka cry. Me, Urashima Keitaro, made my strong poker face aunt, Urashima Haruka, cry a river of tears."
A chill ran down Naru's spine. Thanks to her mother's obsessive fear of mental diseases and disorders, Naru knew an unusual amount of psychology trivia. His symptoms and descriptions of someone else taking over his body bore an unsettling resemblance to D.I.D, Dissociative Identity Disorder. The psychology community had renamed that after it found the term Multiple Personality Disorder misleading.
People diagnosed with this disorder needed years of extensive therapy to get over it. Naru could tell that Keitaro did not have years to reach the bottom of this well of mental tribulation. He needed answers and fast. So he must have thought of the meditation practices of Aoyama Motoko and must have figured that only this free-fall meditation had enough power to condense years of therapy into a single night. Naru blushed at how much Keitaro's love for her must have fought against his deteoriating mental state. People with Dissociative Identity Disorder usually lash out at the person who caused them the most pain and suffering, namely herself. She also continued to blush as she realized the truth. She had just confessed her feelings to the real Keitaro, not merely a mental image created by Keitaro, but the real person, Urashima Keitaro.
Keitaro sat in meditation and looked back up at Naru. "I can't do it." Naru's heart sank the moment he spoke those words. The free-fall meditation had brought him into this place and only through the free-fall meditation could Keitaro or anyone here leave this place. If Keitaro could not use the meditation, no one would leave and everyone here would die.
*****
Thirteen minutes left. Maehara Shinobu and Su Kaolla sat in chains as Ken grimaced at the fire damage the "nightmare cooridors" as he called them, had sustained. Ken had walked into the conscience domain where Kaolla said she would find threatened to harm Keitaro and she could not help but cry out, "Don't hurt, Sempai, please." In seconds, Ken pounched on her and carried her out of the pearly white hallways of the conscience into the dismal cooridors to this horrible nightmare realm.
Shinobu left no malice for what Kaolla had done. If something had threatened to do that, Shinobu would have told them anything they wanted to hear. As much as she loved Sempai, she did not consider herself ready to do anything reserved for two consenting adults in complete privacy. Maehara Shinobu needed time to grow up and possibly get over Keitaro someday.
"I will make Keitaro suffer for this, but for right now, I have a treat for you, Shinobu." Ken reached into a box and pulled out a horrible animal. Its cockroach legs and long hard-shelled tail whipped back and forth. Its manta-ray-shaped upper body quivered in protest from having someone peel him away from his home.
"Once, this thing latches onto you, you will experience your precious Sempai in ways you only imagined." Shinobu blushed at what he said. For a moment, he worried that this Ken had some form of telepathy, but Shinobu suppressed that thought for good cause. If he had telepathy, he could have read the information out of Kaolla's mind, instead having to blackmail it out of her with that horrendous threat. Still, that comment felt like something torn straight from the pages of her mind.
"Now, for Kaolla, this meant torture, but for you, you might find this quite pleasurable." No, she would not. Keitaro belonged to Naru and vice versa. She could not in good conscience experience that with Keitaro. Still Ken did not listen. In seconds, the creature latched onto the back of her head. Shinobu found herself in a room with her Sempai, saying things she wanted to say to Keitaro all this time and having him reply in ways she always hoped she would hear. She could see the world with a newfound beauty and grace.
It almost felt like her own fantasy until things turned ugly. A bright flash of light escaped between their lips and filled the room. A glint of lust shone in her Sempai and she could not stop her own body from embracing his. Tears streamed from her eyes as she navigated every inch of her Sempai, doing the unthinkable and unforgivable onto him and having the unthinkable and unforgivable done onto her. She felt sick and ready to vomit, but her body would not participate in her disgust. Blood leaked from her mouth as her teeth tore her tongue to ribbons. "Please stop this." She finally managed to say as the dream Keitaro prepared to bring a stirring conclusion to this parade of obscenities. A look of fear and begging for forgiveness came over the dream Keitaro's face. Shinobu knew only one answer she could give his request. "No, Keitaro, I can never forgive you."
TO BE CONTINUED ...