Disclaimer: I do not own "Love Hina" or its characters.
Save Keitaro
Near Death
Otohime Mutsumi needed to summon her strength to rescue Maehara Shinobu. Now it seemed like she needed to rescue Su Kaolla. Fortunately she had that strength. Here, when the beasts of this dark frightful place overwhelmed. Ever since she had arrived to this dangerous realm of her Kei-kun's inner thoughts and feelings, Mutsumi had left her anemia-ridden body in the real world. Plus, she went for help and Aoyama Motoko seemed to have renewed interest in saving Keitaro, apparently from himself.
As the Keitaro entity glared intensely into his surroundings, Mutsumi screamed as she caught an eyeful of a scar that ran down from his left eye. This Keitaro, who introduced himself as Ken, felt like her Kei-kun, but radically different, like an aspect of her Kei-kun that he kept hidden away from everyone. Mutsumi could feel the presence of Keitaro's soul in him, but not enough for him to ascend the limitations of a mental image. Mutsumi had screamed her heart out when she caught a glance at Ken's scar and he had not noticed.
Because she had refused to speak directly to him, he could not recognize her presence in any way. Mutsumi even threw herself on top of Ken, he yanked her off of him with startling ease and continued on his way like nothing happened.
When she had jumped Ken, Maehara Shinobu smiled reassuringly at Mutsumi. According to the look on her face, she told Mutsumi that she did not fear Ken. Even with the scar, black clothes and flying trench coat, Shinobu had clearly seen her Sempai beneath it all and she believed that he could do never harm her in any way. Mutsumi hoped that fate would reward Shinobu's faith in Kei-kun with peace of mind. She could only hope.
Frightened beyond words, she knew that she could stage a rescue by herself, she needed heavy artillery. Mutsumi tried to materialize dangerous weapons, but she did not the heart for violence and her weapons always came out quite breakable and often useless. She must find someone adept at forming dangerous weaponry and at the moment she thought about Su Kaolla. She had searched the front of the fantasy vault and found Motoko flying out of the vault, landing in a heap in front of her.
Mutsumi rubbed her eyes as she squinted at Motoko. Had her imagination gotten the best of her or did it look like the solid and emotionless kendo warrior had spent a long time crying? Mutsumi could swear she could see the characteristic redness around her eyes and trails that reminded her of dried tears. Mutsumi shook off all real or imagined observations except one. She had noticed the sword in Motoko's hand. Mutsumi found someone capable of generating dangerous weapons.
Mutsumi gave Motoko's the edited version of what happened to Shinobu, especially the part about the Keitaro lookalike kidnapping Shinobu. Motoko's reaction surprised her. To Mutsumi, it seemed like Motoko had trouble believing that anyone with Keitaro's face would harm Shinobu. Mutsumi had trouble believing it herself, but Motoko used to pounce on Keitaro every time she found those two alone. Now, she visibly resented the idea of Keitaro doing anything to harm Shinobu.
/What happened to you?/ Keitaro's fantasies must have left one fine impression of him on Motoko to make her opinions do this complete and unnatural turnabout. Mutsumi smiled and looked up to the heavens. /I guess miracles do happen./ Mutsumi hoped that miracles. did not take much time off between happenings, because right now, she needed another miracle in less than a couple minutes.
Otohime Mutsumi and Aoyama Motoko marched into battle, following the trail of tears that Shinobu had dotted the ground with. In the distance, Mutsumi could find the self image tablets in the distance. Fifteen minutes or bust. In five minutes, everyone of the girls promised to meet back at the self image tablets. Mutsumi could not have seen of them. This meant either they found Keitaro and had not left for the tablets or that no one had found Keitaro and they still needed those five minutes to search under every proverbial stone for their beloved manager.
A bright light engulfed Mutsumi and Motoko and allowed her passage from the place where Shinobu's tears had ended. Inside Mutsumi noticed the careful mixture of an office building patched with cave-like fungi and stalactites clinging to the ceiling. It gloated all the appeal of a cave merged with the soulless and dimly lit insides of an office building seared by fire. The moment she stepped inside this place, her idea of Hell had grown that much less abstract and took the shape and dimensions of this wicked realm. Surely, this place embodied the less obedient parts of Kei-kun.
Creatures of impossible shapes and sizes marched past Mutsumi and Motoko. Some of the creatures resembled girls from the Hinata-sou. Some had started trying to rebuilt things destroyed by some kind of fire. Even the less rushed and focused of these creatures had not noticed their presence. Mutsumi could feel her a twinge of fear rise inside her as she saw one of Kaolla's machine turtles fly after her. This creature had noticed them. As the turtle froze Motoko's ability to move her hands, Mutsumi leapt up at the mecha Tama-chan and tackled it to the ground. Having her strength back like she did as a child made her feel wonderful. She never realized how much she missed out in because of her medical condition.
On the display screen, the turtle had something written down. [To anyone who receives this: with the materialization powers of this realm, I created and installed a soul radar on this mecha. It can sense the presence of souls in various degrees. Please read and recite discoveries and possible solutions produced by this unit.] The screen changed [Discovery made by mecha: Ken has precisely half of a soul. Possible solution introduced by mecha: ...]
A creature had spotted the suspicious-looking turtle and slashed it in half. Motoko looked up, apparently her look of relief from seeing the turtle destroyed replaced instantly by one of fear as she saw Haruka-san armed with a sword. Still possibly in recovery from seeing a turtle, Mutsumi worried that Motoko might not have had the strength take on this sword-wielding Haruka clone. Fortunately, Motoko would never have to find out.
Mutsumi rushed up the two broken halves and held them together. No use, Haruka's blade must have torn its computer to bits. No, she needed to rejoin the two pieces of this mecha, only then would it work. A surge of adrenaline entered Mutsumi's originally fragile heart as the possible solution introduced by the mecha entered her mind.
Before she had a chance to tell Motoko, she had raced ahead and found Kaolla and Shinobu. Both bound to chains, Shinobu had some ugly crustacean clung to the back of her head. Of course, Mutsumi loved all animals in a detached sort of way, but something about the pincers and hard shell of those particular creatures sent a stab of fear through Mutsumi's heart. She did not want to call it fear, but she had trouble dealing with crabs and crustaceans in any way besides eating their dead well-cooked innards. Forced away from others by the anathema of that crustacean creature, Mutsumi would tell them the secret as soon as she built up the courage to approach them. Until then, she reveled in pride of her quick thinking.
*****
After she finally destroyed the chains around them with Ki blasts. Motoko employed the same Ki blasts in an effort to expel the crustacean-like monster clung to Shinobu's skulls, but the harder she attacked it, the more it strengthened its grip on Shinobu. One more attack and its pinchers would touch each other in Shinobu's head. Motoko could not risk Shinobu experiencing that kind of horrible pain. Plus, the crustaceans did not seem to harm Shinobu. She could clearly see a smile on her face, so perhaps, this creature did not intend to harm her.
As Mutsumi waited in the distance for some inane reason, Motoko charged after her carrying Shinobu and Kaolla away from the site of their imprisonment. Aoyama looked over with renewed relief to see the worthless halves of that frightful turtle mecha dismembered. Motoko did not know much about machines, but from common sense, she knew two dismembered halves of anything could not function properly. Resolved in this bit of thinking, Motoko ran up to Mutsumi.
"Hey, turtle girl, I think we have trouble." Ken emerged from a room and saw what probably appeared to him like two girls carried away by an invisible force. In seconds, Ken materialized a full suit of armor with swords and took to the air, chasing down the two girls. Kaolla formed an army of those horrible mechas to attack Ken. Having a warrior's inability to deny anyone or anything a fight, this Ken choose to slow down and fight the turtles one by one. In a twisted sort of way, Motoko respected Ken's will to fight, but she could not allow him to win his battle against Keitaro. Keitaro deserved to win, Ken did not.
As all of them leapt through the barrier of the domain, Motoko then noticed how Shinobu's facial features had twisted into one of pain and disgust. The crustacean had harmed Shinobu in a way that far exceeded physical torture. Motoko had seen how numerous creatures, both man and demon, react to physical torture. No, this looked a lot worse. It looked like something inside the crustacean had literally torn Shinobu to shreds, mind, body, and spirit, pushed her to the brink.
*****
Urashima Keitaro felt Narusegawa and Kitsune dragging him to the tablets of self-image. His attempts to enter the free-fall meditation had failed and had pummeled him into a state of living death. From his motionless eyes, Keitaro witnessed the stone of the tablets start to crumble and darkness consume the mental landscape, until all the light retreated into a single point in the distance. A chill blanketed every inch of his body. Naru had materialized furs for him to keep himself warm. Urashima Keitaro knew what had befallen this place.
NDE. From everything he heard, he had ten minutes of life still inside him and the body started to feel the icy chill of impending death. According to what Kaolla had told them, none of the girls would survive this if he experience what happened after the Near Death Experience.
Keitaro smiled as he thought about Su Kaolla. In all his rush to find a cure for Ken, he never once thought to turn to Kaolla for help. Perhaps, he worried that the young child would not understand his problem if he told her. In Motoko, he had confidence that Motoko would better understand his dilemma if he had told her. Of course, ultimately, he had told neither of them so Keitaro decided he deemed Motoko's meditations more apt to handle mental troubles. He deemed wrong, but his long list of symptoms had driven his ability to think to its breaking point. He made the decision that felt right at the time.
As Keitaro's thinking of Kaolla must have summoned her, because in the distance, Keitaro could hear Kaolla calling to him. He looked to see Kaolla. Another voice called out to him. In seconds, Otohime Mutsumi materialized next to her. A third, more weary and exhausted than Mutsumi, spoke to him and suddenly he found Motoko standing inches from him, holding something he could not see up to his face. "Could you explain this?" The characteristic malice had drained from her voice. She simply wanted an explanation for what happened, not really determined to harm Keitaro for a wrong answer as she usually would and usually did.
Keitaro gazed at nothing and tried to pretend he saw what Motoko saw by matching the look on her face. "What do you want to know?" Keitaro felt his stomach ready to turn inside up and spill his guts. Naru and Kitsune said that Shinobu had crossed over into his mind too. Where did Shinobu go?
Motoko rose the invisible heap in her hand to Keitaro's eye level, expecting Keitaro to get a better look as something he could not see. "Ken did something to Shinobu and now she will not wake up from kind of nightmare. What happened to her?" The lump in Keitaro's throat had rose to the roof of his mouth. The next questions scared Keitaro. He had a fairly good idea what Ken had done to her, but he did not want to. believe it. Even Ken must have some kind of a soul.
"Does Shinobu have something latched to her head?" Motoko nodded. He continued to the next question, even more afraid to ask the next question that the last. "Did it have pinchers and a long tail?" This time, both Motoko and Mutsumi nodded, Mutsumi a little more vehemently than Motoko. Tears rose in Keitaro's eyes. The cold crystallized the tears and caused them to cling to his face. "Monster, how could he do this to her? She can't handle it, she should not have to."
As Keitaro tried to caress the invisible heap, a voice shouted, "Keitaro, don't touch me." In seconds, the heap rematerialized into Maehara Shinobu and slapped Keitaro's hand away. "Please, for the love of God, don't touch me." As the crustacean scurried away, Shinobu ran to Narusegawa and hid herself from Keitaro behind. Shinobu looked up at Narusegawa as if begging for forgiveness. "Sorry, Narusegawa, I did not mean. I could not help myself."
Spurned from the one girl of them who supported him through all his failings, Keitaro dove against the tablets of self-image, burying in his face in the negative list. The girls gathered around. He could felt Narusegawa Naru grabbed hold of his hand, but he yanked it away.
"Don't touch me, Narusegawa. You don't know me. I do." Keitaro pointed up at tablet. He turned around to make sure he pointed at the right word. He had. [Perverted]. "Ken had subjected her to one of my fantasies. I never meant for Shinobu to see that, but Ken showed it to her anyway."
Keitaro wiped away the icicles of frozen tears to take a better look at everyone's faces. He could not see the gallery of accusing stares and angry looks he had prepared himself emotionally for. Keitaro could only see Shinobu crying and holding on to Narusegawa Naru with Kaolla trying to comfort her of things he expected.
The others stared at Keitaro with something he could barely recognize: sympathy. Everywhere he looked, eyes of sympathy greeted him. Trekking through his inner psyche, the women who had always tortured and antagonized him had never see his life from the inside. The light in the distance had grown narrower. If he did not get his act together quickly, the most wonderful, compassionate, caring women in his life would all die here. He would not last quite as long as Kaolla had predicted. He had at most two minutes left until the final curtain. Motoko stepped out from the crowd and handed him her blade. "Ken had followed us here. You will need this to fight him."
Keitaro looked down at the sword and realized that he harbored a hatred for weapons now. For seven hours, Keitaro had fought Ken with every weapon imaginable and every blow he scored against him made him more powerful. The more he fought, the stronger he got. Keitaro threw the blade aside.
"Everything in nature contained its opposite." Keitaro spoke with careful clarity as he rose from the scene of his disgrace. One day, he would repair the damage he had done to Maehara Shinobu, but he had to live for him to do that. The wisest elder had seen the pools of torment brewing inside Keitaro at a young age and armed him with a single phrase to unite the last reserves of his strength in his time of need. "I need no weapon to fight him."
Motoko questioned his decision to enter a battle against a fully-armored opponent, but Otohime Mutsumi pulled her aside. After whispering something to her, Motoko reached for Keitaro. "If anything happens, remember ..." Motoko formed a V-shape with her hand and clapped her hands shut, opened it again and closed it again. Everyone else seemed to understand that this strange hand sign meant, but it had not quite registered with Keitaro. Narusegawa joined in. Kaolla turned away from Shinobu to start clapping. Mutsumi and Kitsune joined in as well. He still did not understand its significance, but seeing everyone supporting him as life slipped away into a dim light in the distance fortified his newfound strength.
"Look what I found." Ken tossed the crustacean at Keitaro. As a reflex, he set it down and smashed his foot against it. "Temper, temper, Keitaro. I gave her a mild example of your carnal self. When I get the other girls, I will feed them your dirty little fantasies and leave them all traumatized wrecks." The shape of Ken floated from the horizon where the light had continued to flow into the distant singularity in space.
"I talk too much. Enough talk. [Fight me]." Keitaro smiled as he felt nothing from Ken's command. Ken felt fear. He must have assumed his powers would work, even though he never tested them. He heard the tone and understood how he should have reacted, but nothing more than the slight urge to fight him had entered his body. His powers had atrophied outside the domains and his will had no power over him anymore.
"I will enjoy tearing you to pieces," Ken replied to his silence raising his sword to slice down Keitaro's frail body, hoping to cut him in half right down the middle. The image of the V-shaped clap entered his mind as the sword descended on him. In seconds, his hands flew out at the sword and intercepted it, catching the sword in his bare hands. As the sword sat in his grip, that strange and painful jolt of static electricity passed between them. The jolt grew more and more intense until the sword exploded into shards.
Floating into the air, Ken dove back down and lifted Keitaro airborne. Ken threatened to take him to the highest point and drop him. Barely listening to his threats, Keitaro pressed his hands into Ken's face. Pain greeted Keitaro as jolts of electricity passed through them. Keitaro and Ken's body grew transparent as the pain came to the brink of forcing them unconscious. As the pain weakened him, the other girls bombarded Ken with everything in their arsenal. One of Kaolla's missile struck Ken and caused him to careen into the girls and smashed into the middle tablet of the self-images, the empty one, smashing it to bits.
*****
As Keitaro looked at his body, he realized that he had obliterated Ken in the crash. But as he felt a scar along his left eye, he realized that he had obliterated Kei in the crash as well. Keitaro had Ken's trench coat, with Kei's normal clothes underneath.
The light in the distance had nearly disappeared. In a brilliant act of awakening, Keitaro understood what he had done. Keitaro always thought he had created Ken only. He had actually dreamed up two versions of himself, Ken and Kei, and had fallen asleep as a child, allowing them to handle his chaotic life. Kei had lived so much of Urashima Keitaro's life, making so many decisions for him, he thought he had kept his soul when Ken separated from him. Only Ken knew better, only Ken knew he had lost a part of himself in the separation. Neither had their souls intact, each contained the half missing from the other. No wonder he had stopped breathing.
A creature with two broken halves cannot operate itself. Only something with both halves intact and together can work. A smile emerged in his face as he floated into the air. He folded his legs into a full lotus blossom. From what he could tell, his body had started breathing again, now he needed to wake up. A bright light formed inside Urashima Keitaro as he felt himself returning to the real world.
Keitaro could feel Shinobu's teary eyes staring up at him. He had assessed the fragmented halves of his soul, but now he needed to make use of his reassembled soul. When he returned to the real world, he would find someone who would help her cope with what had happened to her. The creature forced people to live out fantasies and she had yet to reach the emotional maturity to experience that. In fact, all the girls he lived with needed help coping. Neither the Keitaro they knew or the Ken they despised existed in a real sense of the word and he would have to make all that very clearly to them when he returned.
Keitaro woke up and found strings and needles inside his neck and a helmet around his head. In a circle around him, the other girls started to wake up. Urashima Keitaro looked up to realize the sun had risen. He had returned everyone to the real world as he planned to, but in a state of sleep where they remained until they awoke. Like Kitsune always had to after drinking, Keitaro now had to face the day after.
CONCLUSION COMING SOON …
Save Keitaro
Near Death
Otohime Mutsumi needed to summon her strength to rescue Maehara Shinobu. Now it seemed like she needed to rescue Su Kaolla. Fortunately she had that strength. Here, when the beasts of this dark frightful place overwhelmed. Ever since she had arrived to this dangerous realm of her Kei-kun's inner thoughts and feelings, Mutsumi had left her anemia-ridden body in the real world. Plus, she went for help and Aoyama Motoko seemed to have renewed interest in saving Keitaro, apparently from himself.
As the Keitaro entity glared intensely into his surroundings, Mutsumi screamed as she caught an eyeful of a scar that ran down from his left eye. This Keitaro, who introduced himself as Ken, felt like her Kei-kun, but radically different, like an aspect of her Kei-kun that he kept hidden away from everyone. Mutsumi could feel the presence of Keitaro's soul in him, but not enough for him to ascend the limitations of a mental image. Mutsumi had screamed her heart out when she caught a glance at Ken's scar and he had not noticed.
Because she had refused to speak directly to him, he could not recognize her presence in any way. Mutsumi even threw herself on top of Ken, he yanked her off of him with startling ease and continued on his way like nothing happened.
When she had jumped Ken, Maehara Shinobu smiled reassuringly at Mutsumi. According to the look on her face, she told Mutsumi that she did not fear Ken. Even with the scar, black clothes and flying trench coat, Shinobu had clearly seen her Sempai beneath it all and she believed that he could do never harm her in any way. Mutsumi hoped that fate would reward Shinobu's faith in Kei-kun with peace of mind. She could only hope.
Frightened beyond words, she knew that she could stage a rescue by herself, she needed heavy artillery. Mutsumi tried to materialize dangerous weapons, but she did not the heart for violence and her weapons always came out quite breakable and often useless. She must find someone adept at forming dangerous weaponry and at the moment she thought about Su Kaolla. She had searched the front of the fantasy vault and found Motoko flying out of the vault, landing in a heap in front of her.
Mutsumi rubbed her eyes as she squinted at Motoko. Had her imagination gotten the best of her or did it look like the solid and emotionless kendo warrior had spent a long time crying? Mutsumi could swear she could see the characteristic redness around her eyes and trails that reminded her of dried tears. Mutsumi shook off all real or imagined observations except one. She had noticed the sword in Motoko's hand. Mutsumi found someone capable of generating dangerous weapons.
Mutsumi gave Motoko's the edited version of what happened to Shinobu, especially the part about the Keitaro lookalike kidnapping Shinobu. Motoko's reaction surprised her. To Mutsumi, it seemed like Motoko had trouble believing that anyone with Keitaro's face would harm Shinobu. Mutsumi had trouble believing it herself, but Motoko used to pounce on Keitaro every time she found those two alone. Now, she visibly resented the idea of Keitaro doing anything to harm Shinobu.
/What happened to you?/ Keitaro's fantasies must have left one fine impression of him on Motoko to make her opinions do this complete and unnatural turnabout. Mutsumi smiled and looked up to the heavens. /I guess miracles do happen./ Mutsumi hoped that miracles. did not take much time off between happenings, because right now, she needed another miracle in less than a couple minutes.
Otohime Mutsumi and Aoyama Motoko marched into battle, following the trail of tears that Shinobu had dotted the ground with. In the distance, Mutsumi could find the self image tablets in the distance. Fifteen minutes or bust. In five minutes, everyone of the girls promised to meet back at the self image tablets. Mutsumi could not have seen of them. This meant either they found Keitaro and had not left for the tablets or that no one had found Keitaro and they still needed those five minutes to search under every proverbial stone for their beloved manager.
A bright light engulfed Mutsumi and Motoko and allowed her passage from the place where Shinobu's tears had ended. Inside Mutsumi noticed the careful mixture of an office building patched with cave-like fungi and stalactites clinging to the ceiling. It gloated all the appeal of a cave merged with the soulless and dimly lit insides of an office building seared by fire. The moment she stepped inside this place, her idea of Hell had grown that much less abstract and took the shape and dimensions of this wicked realm. Surely, this place embodied the less obedient parts of Kei-kun.
Creatures of impossible shapes and sizes marched past Mutsumi and Motoko. Some of the creatures resembled girls from the Hinata-sou. Some had started trying to rebuilt things destroyed by some kind of fire. Even the less rushed and focused of these creatures had not noticed their presence. Mutsumi could feel her a twinge of fear rise inside her as she saw one of Kaolla's machine turtles fly after her. This creature had noticed them. As the turtle froze Motoko's ability to move her hands, Mutsumi leapt up at the mecha Tama-chan and tackled it to the ground. Having her strength back like she did as a child made her feel wonderful. She never realized how much she missed out in because of her medical condition.
On the display screen, the turtle had something written down. [To anyone who receives this: with the materialization powers of this realm, I created and installed a soul radar on this mecha. It can sense the presence of souls in various degrees. Please read and recite discoveries and possible solutions produced by this unit.] The screen changed [Discovery made by mecha: Ken has precisely half of a soul. Possible solution introduced by mecha: ...]
A creature had spotted the suspicious-looking turtle and slashed it in half. Motoko looked up, apparently her look of relief from seeing the turtle destroyed replaced instantly by one of fear as she saw Haruka-san armed with a sword. Still possibly in recovery from seeing a turtle, Mutsumi worried that Motoko might not have had the strength take on this sword-wielding Haruka clone. Fortunately, Motoko would never have to find out.
Mutsumi rushed up the two broken halves and held them together. No use, Haruka's blade must have torn its computer to bits. No, she needed to rejoin the two pieces of this mecha, only then would it work. A surge of adrenaline entered Mutsumi's originally fragile heart as the possible solution introduced by the mecha entered her mind.
Before she had a chance to tell Motoko, she had raced ahead and found Kaolla and Shinobu. Both bound to chains, Shinobu had some ugly crustacean clung to the back of her head. Of course, Mutsumi loved all animals in a detached sort of way, but something about the pincers and hard shell of those particular creatures sent a stab of fear through Mutsumi's heart. She did not want to call it fear, but she had trouble dealing with crabs and crustaceans in any way besides eating their dead well-cooked innards. Forced away from others by the anathema of that crustacean creature, Mutsumi would tell them the secret as soon as she built up the courage to approach them. Until then, she reveled in pride of her quick thinking.
*****
After she finally destroyed the chains around them with Ki blasts. Motoko employed the same Ki blasts in an effort to expel the crustacean-like monster clung to Shinobu's skulls, but the harder she attacked it, the more it strengthened its grip on Shinobu. One more attack and its pinchers would touch each other in Shinobu's head. Motoko could not risk Shinobu experiencing that kind of horrible pain. Plus, the crustaceans did not seem to harm Shinobu. She could clearly see a smile on her face, so perhaps, this creature did not intend to harm her.
As Mutsumi waited in the distance for some inane reason, Motoko charged after her carrying Shinobu and Kaolla away from the site of their imprisonment. Aoyama looked over with renewed relief to see the worthless halves of that frightful turtle mecha dismembered. Motoko did not know much about machines, but from common sense, she knew two dismembered halves of anything could not function properly. Resolved in this bit of thinking, Motoko ran up to Mutsumi.
"Hey, turtle girl, I think we have trouble." Ken emerged from a room and saw what probably appeared to him like two girls carried away by an invisible force. In seconds, Ken materialized a full suit of armor with swords and took to the air, chasing down the two girls. Kaolla formed an army of those horrible mechas to attack Ken. Having a warrior's inability to deny anyone or anything a fight, this Ken choose to slow down and fight the turtles one by one. In a twisted sort of way, Motoko respected Ken's will to fight, but she could not allow him to win his battle against Keitaro. Keitaro deserved to win, Ken did not.
As all of them leapt through the barrier of the domain, Motoko then noticed how Shinobu's facial features had twisted into one of pain and disgust. The crustacean had harmed Shinobu in a way that far exceeded physical torture. Motoko had seen how numerous creatures, both man and demon, react to physical torture. No, this looked a lot worse. It looked like something inside the crustacean had literally torn Shinobu to shreds, mind, body, and spirit, pushed her to the brink.
*****
Urashima Keitaro felt Narusegawa and Kitsune dragging him to the tablets of self-image. His attempts to enter the free-fall meditation had failed and had pummeled him into a state of living death. From his motionless eyes, Keitaro witnessed the stone of the tablets start to crumble and darkness consume the mental landscape, until all the light retreated into a single point in the distance. A chill blanketed every inch of his body. Naru had materialized furs for him to keep himself warm. Urashima Keitaro knew what had befallen this place.
NDE. From everything he heard, he had ten minutes of life still inside him and the body started to feel the icy chill of impending death. According to what Kaolla had told them, none of the girls would survive this if he experience what happened after the Near Death Experience.
Keitaro smiled as he thought about Su Kaolla. In all his rush to find a cure for Ken, he never once thought to turn to Kaolla for help. Perhaps, he worried that the young child would not understand his problem if he told her. In Motoko, he had confidence that Motoko would better understand his dilemma if he had told her. Of course, ultimately, he had told neither of them so Keitaro decided he deemed Motoko's meditations more apt to handle mental troubles. He deemed wrong, but his long list of symptoms had driven his ability to think to its breaking point. He made the decision that felt right at the time.
As Keitaro's thinking of Kaolla must have summoned her, because in the distance, Keitaro could hear Kaolla calling to him. He looked to see Kaolla. Another voice called out to him. In seconds, Otohime Mutsumi materialized next to her. A third, more weary and exhausted than Mutsumi, spoke to him and suddenly he found Motoko standing inches from him, holding something he could not see up to his face. "Could you explain this?" The characteristic malice had drained from her voice. She simply wanted an explanation for what happened, not really determined to harm Keitaro for a wrong answer as she usually would and usually did.
Keitaro gazed at nothing and tried to pretend he saw what Motoko saw by matching the look on her face. "What do you want to know?" Keitaro felt his stomach ready to turn inside up and spill his guts. Naru and Kitsune said that Shinobu had crossed over into his mind too. Where did Shinobu go?
Motoko rose the invisible heap in her hand to Keitaro's eye level, expecting Keitaro to get a better look as something he could not see. "Ken did something to Shinobu and now she will not wake up from kind of nightmare. What happened to her?" The lump in Keitaro's throat had rose to the roof of his mouth. The next questions scared Keitaro. He had a fairly good idea what Ken had done to her, but he did not want to. believe it. Even Ken must have some kind of a soul.
"Does Shinobu have something latched to her head?" Motoko nodded. He continued to the next question, even more afraid to ask the next question that the last. "Did it have pinchers and a long tail?" This time, both Motoko and Mutsumi nodded, Mutsumi a little more vehemently than Motoko. Tears rose in Keitaro's eyes. The cold crystallized the tears and caused them to cling to his face. "Monster, how could he do this to her? She can't handle it, she should not have to."
As Keitaro tried to caress the invisible heap, a voice shouted, "Keitaro, don't touch me." In seconds, the heap rematerialized into Maehara Shinobu and slapped Keitaro's hand away. "Please, for the love of God, don't touch me." As the crustacean scurried away, Shinobu ran to Narusegawa and hid herself from Keitaro behind. Shinobu looked up at Narusegawa as if begging for forgiveness. "Sorry, Narusegawa, I did not mean. I could not help myself."
Spurned from the one girl of them who supported him through all his failings, Keitaro dove against the tablets of self-image, burying in his face in the negative list. The girls gathered around. He could felt Narusegawa Naru grabbed hold of his hand, but he yanked it away.
"Don't touch me, Narusegawa. You don't know me. I do." Keitaro pointed up at tablet. He turned around to make sure he pointed at the right word. He had. [Perverted]. "Ken had subjected her to one of my fantasies. I never meant for Shinobu to see that, but Ken showed it to her anyway."
Keitaro wiped away the icicles of frozen tears to take a better look at everyone's faces. He could not see the gallery of accusing stares and angry looks he had prepared himself emotionally for. Keitaro could only see Shinobu crying and holding on to Narusegawa Naru with Kaolla trying to comfort her of things he expected.
The others stared at Keitaro with something he could barely recognize: sympathy. Everywhere he looked, eyes of sympathy greeted him. Trekking through his inner psyche, the women who had always tortured and antagonized him had never see his life from the inside. The light in the distance had grown narrower. If he did not get his act together quickly, the most wonderful, compassionate, caring women in his life would all die here. He would not last quite as long as Kaolla had predicted. He had at most two minutes left until the final curtain. Motoko stepped out from the crowd and handed him her blade. "Ken had followed us here. You will need this to fight him."
Keitaro looked down at the sword and realized that he harbored a hatred for weapons now. For seven hours, Keitaro had fought Ken with every weapon imaginable and every blow he scored against him made him more powerful. The more he fought, the stronger he got. Keitaro threw the blade aside.
"Everything in nature contained its opposite." Keitaro spoke with careful clarity as he rose from the scene of his disgrace. One day, he would repair the damage he had done to Maehara Shinobu, but he had to live for him to do that. The wisest elder had seen the pools of torment brewing inside Keitaro at a young age and armed him with a single phrase to unite the last reserves of his strength in his time of need. "I need no weapon to fight him."
Motoko questioned his decision to enter a battle against a fully-armored opponent, but Otohime Mutsumi pulled her aside. After whispering something to her, Motoko reached for Keitaro. "If anything happens, remember ..." Motoko formed a V-shape with her hand and clapped her hands shut, opened it again and closed it again. Everyone else seemed to understand that this strange hand sign meant, but it had not quite registered with Keitaro. Narusegawa joined in. Kaolla turned away from Shinobu to start clapping. Mutsumi and Kitsune joined in as well. He still did not understand its significance, but seeing everyone supporting him as life slipped away into a dim light in the distance fortified his newfound strength.
"Look what I found." Ken tossed the crustacean at Keitaro. As a reflex, he set it down and smashed his foot against it. "Temper, temper, Keitaro. I gave her a mild example of your carnal self. When I get the other girls, I will feed them your dirty little fantasies and leave them all traumatized wrecks." The shape of Ken floated from the horizon where the light had continued to flow into the distant singularity in space.
"I talk too much. Enough talk. [Fight me]." Keitaro smiled as he felt nothing from Ken's command. Ken felt fear. He must have assumed his powers would work, even though he never tested them. He heard the tone and understood how he should have reacted, but nothing more than the slight urge to fight him had entered his body. His powers had atrophied outside the domains and his will had no power over him anymore.
"I will enjoy tearing you to pieces," Ken replied to his silence raising his sword to slice down Keitaro's frail body, hoping to cut him in half right down the middle. The image of the V-shaped clap entered his mind as the sword descended on him. In seconds, his hands flew out at the sword and intercepted it, catching the sword in his bare hands. As the sword sat in his grip, that strange and painful jolt of static electricity passed between them. The jolt grew more and more intense until the sword exploded into shards.
Floating into the air, Ken dove back down and lifted Keitaro airborne. Ken threatened to take him to the highest point and drop him. Barely listening to his threats, Keitaro pressed his hands into Ken's face. Pain greeted Keitaro as jolts of electricity passed through them. Keitaro and Ken's body grew transparent as the pain came to the brink of forcing them unconscious. As the pain weakened him, the other girls bombarded Ken with everything in their arsenal. One of Kaolla's missile struck Ken and caused him to careen into the girls and smashed into the middle tablet of the self-images, the empty one, smashing it to bits.
*****
As Keitaro looked at his body, he realized that he had obliterated Ken in the crash. But as he felt a scar along his left eye, he realized that he had obliterated Kei in the crash as well. Keitaro had Ken's trench coat, with Kei's normal clothes underneath.
The light in the distance had nearly disappeared. In a brilliant act of awakening, Keitaro understood what he had done. Keitaro always thought he had created Ken only. He had actually dreamed up two versions of himself, Ken and Kei, and had fallen asleep as a child, allowing them to handle his chaotic life. Kei had lived so much of Urashima Keitaro's life, making so many decisions for him, he thought he had kept his soul when Ken separated from him. Only Ken knew better, only Ken knew he had lost a part of himself in the separation. Neither had their souls intact, each contained the half missing from the other. No wonder he had stopped breathing.
A creature with two broken halves cannot operate itself. Only something with both halves intact and together can work. A smile emerged in his face as he floated into the air. He folded his legs into a full lotus blossom. From what he could tell, his body had started breathing again, now he needed to wake up. A bright light formed inside Urashima Keitaro as he felt himself returning to the real world.
Keitaro could feel Shinobu's teary eyes staring up at him. He had assessed the fragmented halves of his soul, but now he needed to make use of his reassembled soul. When he returned to the real world, he would find someone who would help her cope with what had happened to her. The creature forced people to live out fantasies and she had yet to reach the emotional maturity to experience that. In fact, all the girls he lived with needed help coping. Neither the Keitaro they knew or the Ken they despised existed in a real sense of the word and he would have to make all that very clearly to them when he returned.
Keitaro woke up and found strings and needles inside his neck and a helmet around his head. In a circle around him, the other girls started to wake up. Urashima Keitaro looked up to realize the sun had risen. He had returned everyone to the real world as he planned to, but in a state of sleep where they remained until they awoke. Like Kitsune always had to after drinking, Keitaro now had to face the day after.
CONCLUSION COMING SOON …