Revision note: This is a revised version of the document which previously appeared here. This is the "real thing", unlike the placeholder document that previously occupied this space. The former ending is gone and replaced with a considerably longer ending. See the notes at the end for details, discussion, etc.
Then To Live As a Woman
The Third Day
A Love Hina Fanfic
Tim Williams (ffml(underscore)tim(at)yahoo(dot)com)
All characters and settings are copyright Ken Akamatsu, and others. Divergence from manga #74 (Volume 9) or anime episode 25. Fairly spoiler-ridden if you haven't seen or read that far, but not too badly so. This series is the sequel to "To Live Not as a Warrior".
Six seventy four, she counted to herself, the halves of the leaf fluttering in opposite directions. Six seventy five. Another leaf vanished beneath the edge of her blade and sprang away as two where there had been one. Six seventy six.
On and on it went, the training to make herself a better warrior had gone on for years, with these last few months being the most rewarding, even as they were the most difficult. "Seven hundred," she sighed and took a few seconds to breathe and focus.
"Motoko-sensei." A voice used her name gently, as if to wake her from her reverie. The name was said with confidence and warmth, something which gave her a secret thrill, deep down inside. She'd never thought she would find a male to grow so familiar with or that she was even capable of allowing that growth to occur.
She opened her eyes and looked to the newcomer. He was garbed in kendo robes, similar to her own, though in a stylish black. The blade across his shoulder showed that his intention was probably practice, or, possibly, battle.
"Urashima-san," she said and returned the bow he had given her. "Have you come to test the leaves as well?"
Urashima Keitaro laughed softly, the smile on his face almost distracting her from the tension she could read in his stance. "I have come to test... but not with the leaves."
Motoko sighed and leveled her blade at him. "You have been my student for only six months, but you think to challenge me already." She smiled back at him, silently congratulating herself on teaching him confidence, something she had lacked before. "Then let us see who is worthy to be called 'teacher'."
As the challenged party, Motoko waited patiently for Keitaro's move. He would have to draw his blade and meet her, while she waited with blade in hand. He did so, and, almost too fast to follow, the katana was in his hand and he was on her, steel ringing against steel.
This was no battle of showy blasts and secret maneuvers, but rather one of sheer will and determination and raw skill. Blow after blow was traded and parried and dodged, but for a few moments, it seemed as though neither could gain an advantage. He has certainly grown more skilled, Motoko mused, but then the battle was over.
Motoko looked up, idly wondering how he had managed to send her blade sliding from her grasp and her falling backwards. Even more amazingly, he had caught her before she could fall. Now, he held her in one strong arm, gazing down at her. For a long moment, she was lost in his eyes, but then he spoke.
"Motoko-chan," he said, his breath hot against her face. She blushed, from a combination of the heat, her position, his use of such a familiar name, and his manliness. "You have taught me well, but now it is time I teach you." He leaned in to kiss her.
She blushed, but her eyes narrowed and she gasped out, "Kei-kun" as he moved in to meet her.
Just before their lips could meet, he murmured softly, "Wow, that's pretty good, Motoko. You should be a writer."
Only, it wasn't a murmur, and it didn't come from his lips, Motoko realized with a start and dropped her pencil which clattered away on the tabletop. She looked up and realized that Keitaro had been reading over her shoulder and he had seen what she'd... She blushed fiercely and tried to cover up the study book which had somehow gotten filled with a lurid short story.
He read that... and now he thinks I want him to teach me... Her blush only deepened. A week ago, she would have struck him dead where he stood for intruding, but it was his room, as well, and she couldn't very well kill her husband. Well, not for something this minor, anyway.
They'd been married three whole days, but she still couldn't concentrate on anything of her old life. Even the lessons she gave Keitaro were a challenge to her focus, and school was sliding by murkily. Something would have to change soon or there was little chance she would pass the upcoming center exam.
Seeing her distress, Keitaro offered up the tray he had been using to carry tea. Motoko blushed, though now it was more from the embarrassment that a man on a crutch carrying a tea service had managed to sneak up on her.
He gave her a slightly nervous smile, as though expecting to be assaulted at any moment. "I t-thought you would like some tea... to help you study."
Motoko took a deep breath and nodded. Keitaro placed the tray on the table and started to hobble away, but Motoko stopped him. "Come and sit," she asked, her voice surprisingly soft. "Please," she added when he hesitated a little.
Keitaro looked confused, to say the least, but obediently sank into a sitting position, resting his crutch behind him. For several moments, there was awkward silence as they sat together. Things had been awkward, all around, at the Hinatasou since Shinobu and Naru had vanished, though that was more a symptom of the problem than the problem itself.
Naru being scarce wasn't too surprising, but Shinobu's disappearance had been felt more immediately by the remaining residents. The only sign that it had been planned was a hastily written note in Shinobu's room asking them not to look for her and assuring them she would return in a few days. Keitaro had to assume that Naru was with her, though he couldn't be sure. If it hadn't been for his marriage, he would have taken off after her, broken leg or not.
In any case, no one had any idea where they had vanished to, and aside from traipsing across the country to find them, the only other option was to wait for their return. The building seemed a lot emptier without them around, though it was also a lot quieter which suited Motoko fine. Mostly.
Something else had been weighing on Motoko's mind, as well, though. "Keitaro... I..." She took another sip of her tea to cover the hesitation she felt toward this topic. "I was wondering... you finally passed the Toudai examination so... you are probably the most experienced person in taking it I shall have a chance to meet."
Keitaro laughed nervously. "Well, Mutsumi and Naru did the same thing..."
For some reason, Motoko tensed slightly at the mention of Naru. Heedless of this, she pressed on. "I... I would appreciate it if you would be so kind as to tutor me." For a moment, a vision of her short story returned and the word 'tutor' seemed to acquire all sorts of ettchi connotations.
Keitaro stared at her for a moment, apparently amazed that Motoko was asking for help. "I... of course I will help you, Motoko."
Motoko sagged a little bit in relief. While she was slowly regaining some of her confidence, she was even more afraid of rejection than she had been before this entire ordeal started. Just as long as he doesn't try to 'teach' me anything other than academics, part of her added.
Another part of her mind, one she normally kept on a short leash, added mischievously, He can teach me all about that later.
Shinobu's world swam around her as she paused for breath. The long climb up to the temple was farther than she had expected, and the stairs seemed like they would never end. Naru paused with her, and gave the smaller girl a smile of encouragement. Though they had spent half of the morning debating whether or not they were going to visit Tsuruko, they had finally decided to drop in on the woman's remote home.
Whether or not they were going to be able to convince her to change her mind the farce Keitaro and Motoko were engaged in seemed almost irrelevant. Though their hope was slim, they simply had to make the trip to prove to themselves that they'd done everything that they could.
All around them, the beauty of the mountains stretched out and made the outing almost pleasant. The faint calls of birds drifted among the treetops and the clear mountain air was cut with the scent of coniferous trees. The subtle combination of stimuli brought the whole scene into focus that was almost more real than reality itself.
"There's a flat space up a few more meters, let's stop for some lunch," Naru said with the same faint smile on her face.
Shinobu nodded and started climbing again. The mountain air certainly seems to be agreeing with Naru, she thought. Personally, she was exhausted since she didn't get much sleep the night before, and what sleep she had gotten had been full of dreams which disturbed her on many levels.
The level area really wasn't far, and there was even a stone bench set to one side which appeared to be there for just such a purpose.
They sat and Shinobu produced a couple of vending machine sandwiches and a thermos of tea from her small backpack. Without a kitchen or much cash, they had to rely on cheap processed foods, which wasn't an ideal situation in the best of times. The stuff was edible, at least, and against the beautiful view, it almost tasted good. Plus, it keeps me from having to talk to Naru too much, Shinobu thought, with her mouth conveniently full.
She cast a sidelong glance at the other girl as they sat and ate. What is going on? she asked herself for the ten thousandth time. This time, just as every other time that question bubbled to the forefront of her thoughts, she had no answer. Her physical attraction for Naru seemed to be growing stronger and stronger as the moments crept by and she didn't understand the why or the how of it. Is it because she came all of this way to help me get over Keitaro? Am I just 'that way'? She could feel the blush creeping over her at the thought.
The reverie was shattered as the sandwiches were finished and conversation began again. "So, do you think Tsuruko is going to be any help?" Naru asked, having just finished her sandwich. The words broke Shinobu's train of thought and she shrugged in reply, not having much in the way of an answer. It was true that their official reason for coming up here had to do with Keitaro, after all, but Shinobu had, in a very real way, already given up hope on him.
Keitaro limped around his room, doing his best to make it look cleaner. Motoko was at her juku, and Kitsune had set out for a meeting concerning her writing job. Su's location was a topic that he didn't even know where to begin thinking about. He only hoped that it wasn't somewhere that was going to lead to him having a heart attack.
Motoko had done a good job of cleaning up, he realized, though she had mostly tidied things. Fortunately for him, he had chosen to get rid of certain risqué periodicals months before. He didn't know how he would have dealt with a girl finding those. Again, he added to himself somewhat bitterly.
Instead, he realized that if he wanted their room to look better, he would need to do some serious, hardcore cleaning out of his shelves. There were many books and notebooks which he had no use for, and he could certainly throw them out or, preferably, sell them off to a used book store. There was one not far from Toudai that he'd spotted on one of his many trips to the university before being accepted, and there might even be a place in Hinata, if he did some searching.
The number of old practice exam booklets on the shelves was truly staggering. In his studying, he had ruined more of them than not, and they tended to not be worth much used, in any case. Some of them he kept for his wife, but most of the rest were either so old or so marked on as to be useless. These went into a pile for later inspection when he would decide if they went into the trash, recycling bin, or into the "for sale" pile.
Soon, he was about a third of the way up the shelf and making good progress. About one in three items was finding its way into the sale pile, and he was clearing up quite a bit of room. It was about then that he turned to place a book on the sale pile and slipped on some loose notebook sheets which had fluttered to the floor. His crutch banged into the shelf and sent it wobbling.
A torrent of papers and exam booklets came raining down on top of him, sending him falling into the stacks he had created and knocking those over as well. The weight of the books pressed him to the floor and kept him there, and the bookcase leaned heavily against the pile, threatening to fall in on it if disturbed too much. He gave a week attempt at getting up, but with his injured leg, it was too much weight. Shifting a few books just let more fall in on top of him, and eventually he simply sighed and laid back.
"Why does my life always have to be so violent," he lamented. One of the practice exams close by had fallen open and something on one of the pages caught his eye. Shifting just enough to reach it, he managed to snag the exam without bringing a further avalanche of papers down on his head and injured leg.
The exam was actually one of the older ones, he realized, and the text that had caught his attention was more of Motoko's neat hand writing. He skimmed it and laughed out loud. "Her breasts rose up to meet his hands as she gasp out, "Kei-kun!""
He had caught a glimpse of the story she had scrawled in her exam booklet earlier, but this one was apparently from before that. Exactly how far before, he couldn't tell, but it looked suspiciously older than their wedding day. He turned back a few pages and was surprised at the length of the work. I shouldn't be reading this, he realized and put the book down.
"Help?" he cried out, wondering if anyone were around. From the clock, he could tell that there was at least another hour before Kitsune would be back and probably longer before Motoko would return.
Sighing, he laid his head back down and settled in to wait. Within five minutes, he'd started reading Motoko's short story again, blushing slightly the whole time.
The Hinatasou was dark when Kitsune got home. She slipped her shoes off and headed for the stairs, bounding up them two at a time, a mischievous grin plastered across her face. The small paper sack in her hands crinkled as she moved, and every now and then she giggled a little.
The meeting had gone well, of course. She could always charm an editor when she needed to, and he'd even agreed to increase her rate. Normally, she did short articles for various magazines, but this time, she'd tried her hand at "fiction". Well, not really fiction, she reminded herself with a smile.
Why the idea hadn't hit her sooner was a mystery, but ever since Keitaro had arrived at the Hinatasou, the place had been the perfect setting for a serial drama. The editor had even indicated that there was a manga artist interested in it, and the rate for that would be even better than for the stories themselves.
She laughed to herself again as she crept down the hallway to Keitaro's room. I'm going to be rolling in the dough. And it writes itself! The mischievous fox-like grin crept across her face at the thought of the pay check. She'd only presented the editor with the first week of Keitaro's stay at the inn, with the names changed to protect the guilty, of course, but he'd eaten it up.
She rapped softly on the door to Keitaro's room. "Hey, Keitaro, you there?" she asked.
From the other side of the door, Keitaro's startled voice sounded, "Yeah... umm... mind helping me out? I'm stuck."
Kitsune paused with her hand on the door. "Um... shouldn't your wife be helping you out with... you know... sticking?"
"Kitsune! Not like that. I'm trapped!"
"Oh," she mumbled, Dang it, I was hoping for something interesting. She opened the door to find Keitaro sprawled under a mound of books and a half turned over bookshelf. "What were you doin' in here?"
"Cleaning. Mind helping me out of this mess?" he asked, his face flushed with embarrassment.
"Sure, sure," she said, and slid closer to his position and lifted the bookcase back into position. Keitaro can certainly generate disasters, she thought. With the bookcase up, he was still trapped, but not in danger of true crushing any longer.
With a mischievous grin on her face, she squatted down by his head. "So, what's your freedom worth to you?"
"Kitsune, this isn't the time for blackmail," he grumbled, rolling his eyes as he did so. Great, he realized. I wish Motoko had come home first. He blinked, however, at the oddness of that thought. How much things have changed...
"I'm just kidding!" she said, raising a hand in a soothing gesture. It was worth a try, though, she lamented silently.
A few minutes of digging and moving later, Keitaro was free of the stack of books.
"So," Kitsune started, "How long were you under that?" Her eyes caught something on an open book which was a bit apart from the pile and her eyebrow raised, That looks like Motoko's handwriting.
"An hour or so," Keitaro said, his attention diverted to checking out his leg to make sure he hadn't damaged it further than it had been to start with. "I thought no one would ever show up."
"Hey, Keitaro, what's this?" she asked, snagging the open exam booklet. "'Keitaro-sama, make me your...'" she read and his face went red.
"Nothing! Don't read that, it's private," he said, blushing and hobbling toward her in order to reclaim the book. She easily evaded him and continued reading.
"'Take me, now! she cried.'" she read in a mockingly breathless voice and laughed as she moved around the room. "Hey, isn't this your wife's handwriting? 'His arms were as hard as steel as he took her to him...'"
Keitaro stumbled and fell, careening into Kitsune as he did so. The book went flying and so did his crutch. Together, they tumbled to the ground with Keitaro on top. With a detached kind of horror, Keitaro realized that the soft, squishy feeling under his hand was, in fact, Kitsune's breast.
Kitsune's face reddened, but she smiled. "So forward! If you're going to be that way, you'd better hurry before," the sound of the door opening seemed to give her pause. "your... wife... gets... home." She laughed nervously and Keitaro closed his eyes tightly.
It's Motoko. She just walked in to see me on top of Kitsune with my hand on her chest. This is not a good thing, he thought, feverishly wishing that it were all a dream. With a start, he realized that he was still grasping breast and threw himself back, opening his eyes.
Motoko was, indeed, standing in the doorway and the look on her face was far from inviting. "Umm... it was... an accident?" he tried to explain, though such explanation never seemed to go far. This time was no different. Even as the words were leaving his mouth, the kendo girl was already moving.
With a ferocious punch, he went sailing out the window and bounced off a tree, falling to the ground with a solid thud.
"Umm... wow, you two seem to be on different terms, today," Kitsune said, edging toward the door. "That really was an accident, you know."
Motoko seemed to have regained her composure after the brief, violent outburst. "Yes. I know," she said very evenly. "My husband has a lot of those type of accidents, it seems."
"Yeah, well... bye." Kitsune scrambled out the door as quickly as she could. Motoko seems to be more like her old self, I guess. What was up with the romantic writing, though?
She made it back to her own room and collapsed, rubbing her breast where Keitaro's hand had been grasping it. She came home too soon. That wasn't half bad, she mused as she poured herself a drink.
Not too much later, she stopped drinking and looked around. Hmm... I wonder where Su is. Haven't seen her at all since yesterday, come to think of it. She shrugged to herself and poured herself another drink.
As long as the climb up the stairs had seemed, the climb back down seemed to take even longer. Naru grumbled under her breath about Tsuruko as she walked, more than a little upset at the older woman's lack of concern or help. They'd traveled quite a long distance only to be told that it was none of their business.
It was almost dark by the time they got back to the small inn at the base of the mountains where they'd gotten a room earlier that morning. The place was a distance outside Kyoto, and getting back in the nighttime hours was difficult, at best.
As small as it was, the inn did have an outdoor bath. It was in this that Shinobu soaked as the last rays of sunlight vanished from the sky and the stars came out one by one.
She floated on her back, watching the display of lights. The light from the inn and surrounding village didn't drown out as many stars as a large city would, and the view was quite pleasant. Of course, the Hinatasou had a good view of the stars, too.
Thinking about the Hinatasou brought back memories of Keitaro and Su. She had long felt desire for the former and had experienced the physical act for the first time with the latter. "Am I... you know..." she wondered aloud. The night didn't answer her, and she knew that, deep down inside her, there might be an answer. Though, try as she might, she couldn't understand what that answer might be.
"I still like Keitaro... really... and Naru's nice, too... and Su... well, Su is Su..." She moved her arms and slid through the water freely, almost swimming in the bath with the water sloshing around her. "I just..." she started, but didn't have the words to finish. I just...want someone to love me, she thought, internalizing her desires.
Keitaro had been a fixation. Su had been an accident, as much as anything else. She really liked Su, but not quite in that way. Her body's hormones told her that anything feeling that good couldn't be entirely wrong, but she knew that women weren't inherently more desirable than men to her. In the two years since Keitaro moved to the Hinatasou, she'd only had one person interested in her sexually, and that was Su.
She sighed and swam back the other way. Su thinks of sex the way other people think of shaking hands, she realized. Her people apparently didn't place a huge emotional import on sex, and her culture must have decided that love and sex weren't one and the same. What country IS she from?
Suddenly, something large and spiky blotted out the stars and Shinobu blinked and thrashed her way to the side just in time to avoid the form falling into the water where she had been. She grabbed for a towel and turned around just in time to get tackled.
In the dim lighting, she barely made out a flash of blond hair and dark skin as the form barreled into her. "Su?" she asked as she was pushed into a seating position against the edge of the tub. The other girl, also naked, was hugging her.
"Hey, Shinobu! Feelin' better?" the other girl asked, apparently finding nothing wrong with her entrance. "Still mopin' about Keitaro?"
"N-no, Su," she gasp out, trying to extract herself from the other girl's grasp. "How'd you get here?" The fact that they were both naked and slipping against each other in an almost erotic manner brought memories rushing back that she had been trying to ignore for the better part two days.
The girl appeared to ignore her question, "Sure you don't need cheerin' up, Shinobu?" she asked, and Shinobu was even more painfully aware of how close the other girl was. "Cuz, I liked cheerin' you up the other day, an' I don't mind doin' it again."
Though it wasn't visible in the darkness, Shinobu's entire body reddened in a blush. I need to get out of here, or I'm going to do something... weird... she thought as she tried to gently slip herself out of the other girl's grasp. "W-we can't... Someone'll hear us."
"Awww... Don't be shy. Com'on," Su said, her small hands getting quite playful. "We can have some fun."
"B-but, Naru's here, and we're sharing a room, we can't just, you know..." she said, finally getting an arm free. "Maybe when we get back to Tokyo..." she added in an attempt to get the other girl to let up. She'd trade a frisky Su out in public for a frisky Su in the relative privacy of the Hinatasou any day.
Su tried for another second or two to change her mind with some deft finger motions that made Shinobu wonder exactly where she'd learned them, but Shinobu was resolute. After a few seconds, Su seemed to get another idea. "Naru need cheerin' up? It's real fun with three," she said with a grin.
"N-No, I don't think she'd go for t-that," Shinobu stammered. The thought of having a threesome with Naru didn't repulse her. In fact, she'd spent much of the day trying to decide if she wanted to have a two-way with Naru. However, she didn't think the other girl would enjoy being ambushed by Su's rather forward tactics, if she had any desires at all to try out that kind of love. "Let's just go to bed. You know. To s-sleep. Nothing else."
"I didn't hit you that hard," Motoko mumbled, as she pressed the cloth against a scrape and applied some balm to it. "Hold still," she said, wrapping a bandage around the wound. Though she didn't show it, Keitaro had the distinct feeling that she was apologizing in her own way.
"You didn't have to hit me at all. I said it was an accident," he said, his lips twisted in a grimace as his wounds were tended to. "You could've hurt my leg."
"You have far too many accidents, Keitaro," she said, placing the last bandage in place firmly, which caused a painful accent to her statement. "I only used my hand."
That's right, he realized. Normally, she would have attempted outright murder on him with live steel. That was almost a love tap, by comparison. "Still, that hurt a lot."
"Then do not have so many accidents," she said, rising and surveying the wreckage of the room. There were still books covering the floor, and several of them appeared to be damaged from the fall. Motoko's exam book with the lurid short story was open on top of the heap. "You really caused quite a mess today..."
"I was trying to clean up," he mumbled sheepishly. "The bookcase fell on top of me and I was trapped till Kitsune came along."
Motoko snagged the exam book from the top of the pile. The rumpled condition of the pages and a few greasy fingerprints made it obvious that someone had been reading it. "Keitaro... You know I l-like you, right?"
Keitaro's mouth fell open in astonishment at the admission. "I... I... I like you, too, Motoko," he replied and she seemed to relax a little.
"I know," she answered. "Or, at least, I think I know. These last few days have been hard, but I guess I have not hated you for a long time. Even... even though you have qualities that I do not like, I think I like you."
She paused for a moment before going on, "I've never said that before. You're the first guy, you know, that I've liked." She turned her head and tilted her torso enough that she could see him. Framed against the full moon out the window, with her hair down she seemed a vision of pure beauty even with the blush spreading across her cheeks. In that moment, he could find no words to express his feelings. "I guess... I am not so good at being a wife."
"M-Motoko," he said, his words coming only with difficulty as he tried to find a way to express some of the emotions surging inside him. "I... You... You will make a good wife."
She turned away to stare at the moon again and sighed. "Keitaro..."
After a long moment, she spoke once more, "Will you help me clean up this mess? I think I would like to go to bed now."
He nodded his assent, "Yes, Motoko."
In the darkness, Shinobu waited for the breathing from the futon beside her to become rhythmic. She let out a sigh of relief as it did and stared at the ceiling above. Her life had becomes so complicated in the last few days. It had become more complicated than she had ever dreamed possible, and given the last few years, that was quite complicated indeed.
Naru had been surprised to see Su, but she hadn't objected to letting the girl stay the night with them. They were all heading back to the Hinatasou the next morning, in any case. Since there were only two futons, Shinobu and Su had ended up sharing one. Even though Su didn't seem intent on providing a "cheering up" any longer, her proximity still made Shinobu nervous.
I don't know what's going on, she thought. I like Su... I really do. But I don't want to be with her that way. But... what do I want?
The light of the full moon streaming into the room highlighted the sleeping form of Naru on the other futon. Do I want her? she wondered. The light of the moon threw her curves into shadow, making her look almost ghostly in the light. Maybe... but... I don't know.
She hugged the blanket to herself as the temperature dropped slowly, sending the surface of her arms into pebbled gooseflesh. Maybe I should become a monk. They don't have to worry about this stuff.
As the other girls slept, she found that she had many more questions, but no answers. Before too long, Su began her nighttime acrobatics, which seemed to be designed to alternately maim and molest. Needless to say, Shinobu did not get much sleep.
Author's notes:
Wow, that's certainly better than the draft version of the fic. About 5k words, which puts it on par with the other chapters of the story so far. In any case, I'm going to take advantage of the long fic to insert some long comments.
The age of the fic. This fic was originally started in early 2003, back when I was traveling for work a lot. Oddly enough, I'm picking it back up shortly after another long stint of travel for work (manga travels well on planes, don'tchaknow). I've had a few discussions since I put up the draft of this chapter that have indicated that the plot of this fic is almost cliché. Frankly, that's an honor, because I know for a fact that prior to this fic, it was a relatively original idea. To an extent, it almost feels like I am writing fanfiction about the previous chapters and not about Love Hina. A weird feeling, ne?
In any case, I'm trying to keep the mix of romance, comedy, and action at about the same levels as before. If I swerve too far off of the beaten path, don't be afraid to let me know.
Shinobu is... gay? Well, this element was written a long time ago. I can honestly say that if I were writing the fic from scratch right now, I would not have incorporated it. Is she gay? Is she not gay? Who knows. I'm not going to have a full-blown lesbian-fest anytime soon, though, so don't worry (if that's your worry). Su is not gay, since Su doesn't really place labels on sexuality. Americans and Japanese are both uptight about sex in a lot of ways that "primitive" cultures are not. Thus the way Su is acting.
What happened to the Negima stuff? If you read this chapter of the fic in its original draft (which wasn't available for very long), you'd have seen a Negima crossover at the end. After some reviewer prompting, I realized that this didn't fit the fic very well and I cut it. I may well use the concept (mixed up with other concepts that I've used before) in a future fic, but I'm making no promises. For now, it's on a back burner while I write this fic in a fashion more true to the original chapters. Quite likely, I'll be using elements from a Sailor Moon Fanfic I wrote long, long ago to mix it up and make a coherent story. If you were part of the FFML (fan fiction mailing list) back when I was writing this stuff, you might have seen something called The Rebound Effect: Again that I wrote (back in early 2003, again). It'll be slightly similar to that.
This is all... filler? One of the things about this fic, and I definitely remember it being the case with the original, is that the writing seems to make the story more about the journey than the destination. In a very real sense, not much has happened in the last 15,000 words. Those words, however, lay out a journey that I hope you find interesting. Is there a destination? You know, I don't have a good answer to that question...
In any case, if you have any feedback for me, I'd love to hear it. Contact me at the email in my profile or leave a comment.