Figure shrouded in cigarette smokewell now, here is another chapter...enjoy!

Standard Disclaimer: Ken Akamatsu owns Love Hina and he's not selling. I own a motorbike and I'm not selling either...

To Gray Fox the 2nd(): Thanks for the vote of confidence. And I am intending to have appearances from the older characters, but not Naru and Keitaro. Not yet at least.

Chapter 4: First Day as Landlord, January the 9th

Dan woke up blearily and turned around on his futon. The clock on the wall said it was 10 to 8. He had finally understood Shinobu's warning about psychical peril in this job. Motoko had blown him into a low orbit last night with a Ki attack after Wu decided to pull him into a kiss on the kitchen floor. Great, his first day at this job and he already had to fix a huge hole in the kitchen wall. 'Oh well, at least I have a job. And a bed' Dan thought to himself as blearily made his way downstairs to the kitchen. He met Wu in the kitchen and treated her with an icy silence as he ate breakfast. He had to admit she looked particularly good. Her school uniform was really cute, and she used glitter around her eyelids. Her short black hair was spiked today with green and silver highlights. He finally broke the silence.

"Where is everybody?"

"At school," she smiled, "We're alone..." she said suggestively scooting closer to him.

He ignored her second statement and shuffled a little further away from her 'Man, she is really forward, and I get bothered around her. In fact, why am I bothered at all?' he thought before saying, "Why aren't you a school?"

"Cause you're taking me. On your motorbike!" she said happily.

"Huh?"

"Well I kinda slept in, I had really good dreams," she blushed.

"I get a feeling I'm going to be sorry for asking, but what kind of dreams?"

"Well you and me were in them. And we were naked..." she said blushing even more furiously, as she edged closer to him.

"Okay, let's go!" he said, quickly getting up, sweat beading on his face.

"Oh that's a shame, I was getting to the good part," she laughed, following him.

"I really, really don't want to know," he said pulling on his jacket. He turned to look at Wu, whose skimpy skirt and he took it off and offered it to her. "You'll need it, its gets cold."

"Thanks."

He pulled his motorbike out, and kick started the engine. It started immediately with a low purr, he revved the engine a couple of times and the motor roared into life. He turned to Wu, "Hop on"

Her eyes widened with excitement as she quickly hopped up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"Ah, you do know there is a handle at the back for passengers, right?" he asked sweat dropping.

"Yeah, but I want to be closer to you." She said, "Besides it's warmer."

"You ready?"

"Yep, let's goooaaahhhhh!" she screamed as the bike sped off. Dan bunny hopped onto the stairs railing and shot down, jumping over a car that was parked at the bottom of the stairs.

"I need to breathe here, can you loosen up a bit?" he called out.

"Can you slow down and be so reckless?" she asked panicky. He chuckled and slowed down a bit, "How fast are we going?" she asked.

"About 120 kilometres per hour."

Her eyes widened, "But you're only allowed 60 here!"

"Ah, that explains the police behind us! Hold on!"

The rest of the trip was a blur for Wu. She remembered the feeling as they tore down one-way streets, jumped over cars, ran red lights, and scared pedestrians. It felt good. She had always pretended to be a delinquent, but for the first time she really was, and she liked the feeling. Dan finally jumped the school wall and when Wu looked at her watch, she found that she was 5 minutes early. They landed in the midst of a large group of students, miraculously not crushing anyone as they scattered. She noted with pleasure that her spectacular entrance had been seen, and many students were looking out the windows and talking excitedly. The gym-teacher Tsukara-sensei was already heading towards them.

"This is a school, get our punk!" he yelled.

Wu felt a shudder go through Dan, he slowly turned and fixed Tsukara-sensei with a steady glare, "What did you call me?" he asked, deadly quiet.

"I called you a punk, you delinquent, you trash, you..." whatever else Dan was no one else would ever know. A knife thudded into the building, barely millimetres from Tsukara-sensei's head, and he promptly fainted.

"Keep that knife for me, Wu-san?" Dan asked, as if nothing had happened.

"Sure thing, Dan-kun," she giggled as students prodded the unconscious Tsukara-sensei with sticks.

"All right, I gotta blaze before the police get here!" Dan yelled, revving his bike.

"Wait, pick me up at quarter to 4 so that we can go shopping!" Wu called.

"Sure," Dan shrugged and disappeared in a cloud of dust, sirens told Wu that the police were still chasing after the elusive Dan, who would no doubt be having fun.

Once Dan escaped the police, he went a bought some timber to patch up Hinata. The rest of the day was rather boring for Dan, so we'll see what the others were up to...

For Wu the day was agonisingly boring. She couldn't wait till the afternoon when she would be going out with Dan. 'I can't believe it he actually accepted my invitation! Is this a date?' Wu giddily thought. However for some reason Meia was acting very distant, and without the company of her best friend Wu was feeling depressed, not to mention that she had to copy the notes herself, not sneak peeks at Meia's work. Only the fact that she was the centre of attention of the entire school made her feel any better. Girls everywhere were looking at her jealously, and everyone wanted to know who the guy was. Did he go to different school? Was he a member of the infamous Cromartie School? How old was he? When did you meet him? And things like that. Wu was forced to lie through her teeth on some questions, and she hoped that Meia wouldn't wreck everything by revealing that Wu had only met Dan yesterday, and that he was their landlord. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately for Wu, Meia decided to keep silent, and use this trump card the next time she wanted something from Wu. Meia didn't want to admit it, even to herself, but she felt...different...around Dan. She didn't feel shy around him like she normally was around men, she felt that he would listen to her and consider what she said, no matter what. In short, she was slightly jealous of Wu, but didn't admit it. With this in the back of her mind, she started formulating a plan...

Arissa found today, like most days annoying. She had far more important things to learn than algebra or biology. The teachers bothered about problems that no one would actually ever use like the entire existence of the world depended on them. She sighed in resignation and slipped into a trance, her hand copying every single word the teacher said, but her mind was elsewhere. She thought about the fight against Dan, and how easily he had avoided her blows and how he had simply disabled her. It was like she hadn't trained at all, and Arissa didn't like the feeling. Motoko-senpai had underestimated their foe, and as a consequence they had lost. Their defeat had stung Arissa, she hadn't thought that anyone could be better than Motoko-senpai. Arissa resolved to train harder and get rid of Dan.

Su and Sara's day was relatively normal. Everyone was talking about Wu and some motorbike delinquent, who had apparently almost killed Tsukara-sensei and then drove his motorbike over a blockade of police cars whilst being shot at. They guessed that the delinquent was Dan, and so they ignored the rumours. They spent most of the day, huddled in the back of the physics classroom, poring over designs of the newest Mecha-Tama Mk 18 and having heated debates over the weapon systems, fuel injection and everything else. Futsaki-sensei wandered over to his favourite two students, who were again unusually quiet.

"What's this?" he asked curiously.

"Hmm, these sensei?" Sara asked innocently, trying to hide some of the plans and throwing meaningful stares at Su.

"These are the plans for my Mecha-Tama Mk 18," Su said proudly, oblivious to Sara's glares.

"You mean those big robot turtles?" he asked amazed. He like everyone else in the Hinata area had heard about them, and most knew them to be the work of the mad genius of Su.

"Yeah, our new landlords a really good fighter, and he destroyed the last one in about 3 seconds flat," Su said, crestfallen. Sara patted her back consolingly.

"Well instead of the particle beam launcher why don't you..."

Shinobu and Kanako spent the day in their cram school, frantically working in the practise exam. Shinobu finished with minutes to go, and begun checking with feverish excitement. She sighed depressed when she finished; 258 points, barely better than 50% of what she needed. Kanako had finished slightly earlier and had managed 304 points. Both realised they needed help.

"Why don't we ask Keitaro?" Kanako said, a strange gleam in her eye.

Shinobu sweat-dropped, "No, that won't help, Kanako-senpai. You know that you wouldn't pay any attention!"

Kanako sighed, "You're right, Shinobu-chan. But we need help."

"We could ask Motoko-senpai," Shinobu said brightly.

"She has her own exams to worry about, no, we need someone else..."

They were both silent with thought, before simultaneously reaching the same thought.

"Why don't we..." Kanako started

"Ask Dan-kun?" Shinobu finished.

They both discussed it for a while before agreeing that it was the best way. Resolved with a new direction, they both headed home, whilst discussing the best way to ask Dan.

Motoko was restless. She knew that the exams coming up were important, but she couldn't fully concentrate on her studies. The fight between her and Dan kept flashing through her mind. She remembered how easily he had blocked her Ki attack, and how quickly he had disabled Arissa. She had recognised his twin daggers as Butterfly swords; which were Chinese in origin and about 35-40 centimetres in length, and 5-10 centimetres in width. She had also saw tha the blades weren't sharpened, but this didn't help her, because many Chinese martial arts used the weapons. What really bothered Motoko were the metal gauntlets. They were definitely not a normal weapon to be able to block Hina the magic sword and although Motoko had only seen him briefly, she was sure that he hadn't removed them. Another thing that she just realised is that Dan also only wore long sleeves, even in the hot Japanese summer. She knew that her suspicions were running rampant, but she couldn't help herself. He hadn't told any of them much about himself, just that he had never finished school, and that he came from Ireland. He hadn't even told them how old he was or how long he had been in Japan. Motoko was sure that he was the man she bumped into earlier, and was sure that it was not chance that had let that happen. There was something else about Dan that Motoko just couldn't trust, he just felt wrong. A fighter as good as him should have a powerful Ki but she hadn't sensed anything, nothing during the entire fight, Motoko resolved to spar with Dan again. Alone.

Well there it is, another chapter. This one is a little short, and not very good, but it had to be done to keep the story on track...