The Bonds of Time

Chapter 3

Andrew Joshua Talon, with many thanks to Kanako Urashima

DISCLAIMER: Love Hina is not mine. I'm not making any profit off this fanwork, and the authors used own themselves. "The Love Hina Fan Boy War!" is the property of Kanako Himekazi-Urashima, which she gave me permission a while ago back to write a prequel to. Therefore...

''

"Lady Shinobu! I beseech thee!"

The blue tressed goddess, called Shinobu Maehara, calmly surveyed the man before her. On a boulder, within the ruins of Colorado Springs, she sat as she had for several weeks now, voluntarily healing the sick and wounded with her powers. She'd been at this for some time, helping the people.

Her people... Shinobu smiled kindly at the man, covered in boils oozing greenish pus. His eyes were pleading, tears at the edges.

"Yes?"

"Please, Lady Shinobu, I ask thee... Please, heal my disease! Cleanse me of my sins!" Shinobu tilted her head thoughtfully. The rest of the people near her (at any one time-Shinobu had obviously grown pretty popular) watched with keen interest. Shinobu's healing never got old.

"It is not I who can forgive you... Er, thee. That's God's domain."

"But... Are you not our Messiah?" Shinobu took a deep breath, inside, quite frankly growing tired of having to repeat herself every day.

"No, I am not. I simply have the ability to heal, okay? I'm not a Messiah. Now go and do good. You are healed." With a flash of white energy washing over him, the fellow was indeed restored. He looked at his smooth flesh with shining eyes, and fell to his knees before the blushing Shinobu.

"Lady Shinobu, thank you!"

"Er... Sure," Shinobu said, uncertainly. While she'd certainly become popular in this town since moving in and offering her services as a healer, no one had become quite so... Reverent towards her. Naturally, a number of people had thought her an angel from Heaven, but still…

The happy man ran off, singing something along the lines of "Joy to the world, Shinobu's come..." The azure haired goddess blinked, before gathering up her rather worn blue cloak and walking off. As usual, a gaggle of admirers appeared, talking excitedly, but Shinobu waved them off politely as she continued.

She'd walked to a secluded grove of trees, before coming to a simple campsite, with fire, tent, and a table with assorted gadgets, items, and clothing stacked messily all over it. Shinobu couldn't help but smile: Suu had insisted, when they came here, that she would take care of the "housekeeping".

"Well, she asked for it," She murmured softly, pulling out a tea kettle, filling it with water from a nearby spring, and conjuring a few tea leaves with a wave of her hand. She had the kettle whistling quite happily after a few minutes, but before she could release it from the flames...

"SHINOBU-CHAN!" Bellowed Kaolla Suu, causing Shinobu to fall over into their "storage" table with a CRASH. Shinobu sighed dejectedly. She'd had to get used to this, ever since she and Suu had gone into the West together, while everyone else...

Shinobu took a deep breath to keep the tears from surfacing, slowly stood up, brushed her heavily re-knitted cloak free of dirt, and looked up at the beaming Mol-Mol princess.

"Yes, Suu?"

"Come on, I want to show you something! Come on!" Suu grabbed Shinobu's arm and began to drag the bemused domestic goddess along, rushing into the woods. Suu took several sharp turns, so quickly that Shinobu wasn't exactly sure if the Indian-like girl knew where she was going.

Then again, Shinobu reminded herself as she deftly used a Light shield to protect herself from a low hanging branch, Suu did have powers of the Earth. Mostly, they involved metals, and bringing them up to the surface so Suu could build more of her amazing inventions the people of Colorado Springs were starting to break in. But, Suu could probably do much more.

Shinobu was knocked out of her internal musings by Suu's coming to a shattering stop. Shinobu managed to keep her balance, before looking up at the large mountain before her. Shinobu looked curiously at Suu, who grinned.par

"C'mon, Shinobu! The good stuff is inside! C'mon!" Shinobu tolerated Suu dragging her along again, until the two came to a large pipe sticking out of the ground. Suu, grinning mischeviously, clambered inside of the great tube and waved her arm for Shinobu to follow.

"Let's go! I want to show you all I've found!" And with that, Suu dropped into the pipe, a "WHEEEEEE!" sounding in her wake. Taking a hesitant look down the passage, Shinobu gulped, before climbing in and sliding down herself.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKK!" Shinobu screamed, falling down at extraordinary speed. The tunnel abruptly jerked upwards, leveling out, and allowing Shinobu to slowly slide to a halt at the end of the pipe. She got on her hands and knees, and crawled out into a dark, gray hallway. She looked about.

"What took you?" Suu asked, grinning at her like a Cheshire cat from her perch on a pipe above. Shinobu scowled, before holding up her palm.

"Light!" She commanded, and an orb of white energy formed, caged between her fingers. She stood up, and cast the light around herself curiously. The hallway was plain, like a bunker. Of course, Shinobu mused, it probably was.

"This way! Follow Suu!" Kaolla called, leaping to the hard floor and running down the corridor. Shinobu rushed after her, carefully increasing the light her orb produced so she could keep up with the blonde.

Suu took several turns, which Shinobu managed to navigate, before Shinobu stopped short. Her jaw dropped at the sight that greeted her.

"Neat, huh?" Asked Suu excitedly, her exclamation echoing in the cavernous room. It was like Mission Control, with long lines of blue-glowing computer terminals, oriented like pews in a church. Beyond them were four large computer screens, glowing green with wire topographical maps of various mountain ranges, cities, lakes, and plains. They flanked a massive monitor, which displayed a picturesque view of the Earth from space.

"Suu? How did... What is...?"

"It's NORAD, silly! Remember, in Wargames? Anyway, I found it when I was looking for tungsten, and got the computers running!" Suu walked up to one of the control stations, typed quickly on it, and the dominant monitor switched views to that of a CGI Earth, with little blue dots dispersed above it. Suu saw Shinobu's confused expression.

"Those are all the satellites the US - And, probably, the rest of the world - have left in orbit. Mostly scientific probes, plus a few military ones." Shinobu walked forward, entranced by the great screen.

"Can you... Can these satellites tell us what happened? You know, the Cataclysm?" Suu tapped her chin thoughtfully, before typing up a few more commands. The screen switched to an image of the Sun, with the date 5-12-04 in green below it.

"They weren't able to figure out what it was, but they did record what happened." The sun flashed brightly, a white sphere expanding from it's surface like a balloon. The image fizzled, crackled, and finally settled for static. This faded into a view of the sun, looking normal. The image flashed, switching to a view of the Earth.

An Earth with a red atmosphere.

"Oh... I remember this," Shinobu said quietly, "how the sky was red for a whole year, then finally became blue again." Suu nodded thoughtfully, the image switching to that of a wire map of the world, atlas style.

"Yes... This satellite also recorded the population of Earth, with a top secret scanning system. The green indicates heavy population, the yellow, moderate population, and red, low population." The continents were given various color codings, the deepest greens in China and Eastern Asia, with Europe a far second.

"Before shockwave," Suu said tonelessly, hitting another button. The greens on the map instantly vanished, mostly reduced to reds, with a few yellows here and there. In a few spots, the areas had become black.

"After," murmured Shinobu, staring at the screen. This was more awful than she could have imagined, than any at the Hinata could have imagined. They'd known that the Cataclysm had done horrible things to Japan, and given them their powers (it was safely assumed, anyway), but the sheer scale of the devastation...

"Mol-Mol?" Asked Shinobu timidly, not sure if she wanted to know the answer. Suu pressed another button, silent, zooming in on the tiny, hidden nation that Suu's family ruled.

It was a dull red, a window popping up and indicating 100% casualties.

"... I'm sorry..." Suu sniffled, before standing up solemnly.

"... It's okay. They in better place now, right?" Suu pleaded, like a child asking for her blanket and reassurance that everything was going to be okay. Shinobu took a deep, calming breath, and gave Suu a comforting hug.par

"Of course they are..."

''

"...So, with all the secret military technology down in Cheyenne Mountain, Lady Suu started building mechas, enhanced weapons, you know, all that kind of stuff," Talon concluded, draining his bottle of water with flourish. Arney watched him, tilting her head.

"Wow... I... I never knew that... About Lady Suu." Talon shrugged, sighing heavily as he considered the bottle before him ruefully.

"It's not something she was keen to talk about in her biographies. Any of them," Talon stated blandly. Arney nodded, staring down at the hard, mahogany desk before her. She then looked up, fixing Talon with a quizzical expression.

"So basically, the goddesses grew into their powers?" Talon nodded thoughtfully.

"Well, it would be better to say that they gradually learned how to manipulate their powers more precisely. They had the raw energy potential, of course, but it wasn't for a long time that Lady Shinobu was able to, for instance, create a Light barrier around her territory. In any event, Suu and Shinobu's people began to prosper." Arney looked at him intensely.

"Er... Well... What were you doing during that time?"

"I thought we were past my part..."

"No, no! Really, please tell me!" Talon rolled his eyes.

"Look, there's not much to it, really! And, some parts..." Talon's pupils darkened at the memory.

"Please?" Arney asked, her eyes slightly larger than usual. Talon blinked.

"Well, I was never able to refuse a pretty girl," he said after a moment's pause, with a crooked grin. Arney rolled her eyes.

"Oh please, don't try to flatter me. Now, more storytelling! Less stalling!"

"Fine, fine! Sheesh... All right, as you know, I was wandering around with Mutsumi. There. Done."

"No, not done!" Arney growled in annoyance. "What did you two DO? I mean, besides the obvious," she added with a wicked smirk. Talon glared at her.

"Miss Arney, I'm warning you..."

"Hey, hey! I was just kidding, really. Look, why don't you just give me an overview?"

"Very well, very well... We wandered up to the North, our first year together, as the summer was approaching and things were getting hot. We'd do this for a while, gradually getting more and more East, until we came to Washington DC."

"What'd you do along the way? There had to be more to it than that..."

"Saw villages, hamlets and ruined cities. Met some demi-gods and goddesses. Most of them were kind of like me: Confused about their powers, trying to figure out what to do with themselves. A few had taken up the title of leader among their people, using their powers (and, in most cases, their wisdom) to rule fairly..." Talon slid to a stop, looking at his desk. Arney took in a slow breath.

"And a couple... Were total nutcases, monsters. They used their powers to terrorize people, become dictators. And... You had to..."

"Kill a number of them, yes," Talon confirmed quietly, gazing into space. He shook his head, banishing some unknown thought.

"Not the proudest moments of my life, but... I…"

"Did what you had to do..." Arney said softly. Talon looked at her, and nodded slowly.

"Yes, indeed. And in every case, it was a combination of luck, Mutsumi's help, and desperate ingenuity that allowed me to emerge triumphant. I felt rather like the mongoose versus the snake, to be honest." Talon shook his head.

"But, in any case, those assorted demi-gods I fought weren't the real threat that was building. Narusegawa had set up camp in Denver, barely three hundred miles from Shinobu and Suu's kingdom. She'd made deals with the local gang leaders, taken control of any remaining military technology in the area." Talon's gaze hardened at the space he was staring into.

"But, in any case, they weren't the real threat that was building. Narusegawa had set up camp in Denver, barely three hundred miles from Shinobu and Suu's kingdom. She'd made deals with the local gang leaders, taken control of any remaining military technology in the area." Talon's gaze hardened at the space he was staring into.

"Restarting the nuclear weapons program at Rocky Flats," he murmured grimly. Arney blinked incredulously.

"But, but… I read that Rocky Flats didn't have any nuclear materials left in it by 2002. How could she-?"

"Simple. Not all the nuclear materials had been removed," Talon said cooly, "there still remained enough for Naru to construct a few crude plutonium implosion weapons."

"Like Fat Man over Nagasaki?" Arney questioned. Talon nodded.

"Indeed. Up further north, Haruka had been gathering the remains of the Western US Air Force to her. F-16s, F-15s, F/A-18s-She knew they'd need military firepower, and what better way to accomplish this than by acquiring the most advanced military aircraft in the world?"

"And so, like you said in one of your books, 'The stage was set for a new arms race,' Arney quoted darkly. Talon raised a darkly amused eyebrow at Arney.

"You read that book?"

"Well, sure! I read the whole school library, and the dictionaries, by the time I was ten!" Arney said proudly. Talon chuckled.

"In that case, it's official: You never HAD a life in school." Arney looked scandalized.

"I did too! How can you draw THAT conclusion?!"

"Because I did the same thing at your age, and didn't have a single date until my junior year in high school."

"I wouldn't count that as not having a life, sir. But in your case…"

"Oh, hush." Arney scratched her chin.

"What I would like to know, is, well…"

"Yes?"

"Emperor Kebinu, actually," Arney answered quietly, running a hand through her long dark locks.

"What about him, specifically?"

"All I've read about him is that he was a brilliant general and powerful fire mage, who led Naru's armies before and after the Great Continental Shift of 2039. He later became Naru's Head of Security during the Dual Empress period, before being transferred as Secretary of the Army just before Naru took over. He later became responsible, as Imperial Ambassador, for the mass exterminations of thousands of people during the purges of the 2300s. Finally, he became Emperor, ruling beside Naru until her downfall." Talon whistled.

"Not bad research. My compliments."

"And," continued Arney brightly, "he was described as your rival. The only demigod who was your equal in cunning and hand-to-hand combat." Talon fidgeted.

"I'm not entirely sure about that…"

"But… What I want to know is… What was he like, before the Cataclysm, and before he joined Naru?" Talon smiled like a fox. Arney raised an eyebrow.

"Sir?"

"Well, what can I say? Maybe the reason we're compared and contrasted so much in the history books, is because we started the Post-Cataclysm Era very much the same…"

"After him, can we talk about your brother, the Prophet Ben? I'm really interested in him, too, and I was hoping-"

"For crying out loud, Ms. Arney! Do you stop to breathe?"

''

Praise the Lord for writer's block smashers!

NEXT CHAPTER: The Story of Sir Kebinu… only there's no Holy Grail. There IS an adorable white Labrador retriever, though, with a heaping helping of drama! Courtesy of (you guessed it) Kebinu!