Goddess in the Mirror
Chapter 3: How You Play the Game
By Bart Kelsey and Thomas Dye
I'm not sure exactly how it is I manage to end up in these situations. I mean, one minute I'm just minding my own business, and the next, I suddenly find myself under a heap of new responsibilities. Take this new bike I have to build for the club, for example. A couple days ago, Ootaki came up to me and told me they were going to get me a "very special bike" for the drag race this coming Saturday. Of course, after I agreed to it, I found out that "very special" was just another way of saying "some assembly required." Guess who's gotta do the assembling?
It all started at the Auto Club meeting last week. Tamiya decided he'd enter our club into this big intercollegiate drag racing competition. I probably should have objected when he volunteered me to be the one to race, but I have trouble saying no to people sometimes--especially when everybody's cheering and patting me on the back.
What gets me about this whole thing is the situation with the bike. About ten days before the day of the race, Tamiya and Ootaki show up at my apartment with three big boxes of parts and an instruction manual that weighs about as much as a small boulder. They then politely informed me that I was the lucky soul who got to put the bike together. I tried to object, but then they started going on about how "you're really gettin' us out of a fix here, man," and "thanks a bunch for doin' this, dude--we knew we could count on ya!" Now what's a guy supposed to say to that, really? The club's reputation is riding on my shoulders. I can't just let everybody down.
Skuld wasn't sure which was worse--days where the system needed debugging, or days where it didn't. There was never a happy medium between the two, that much was certain. Either the Yggdrasil System was swarming with bugs, or there wasn't one to be found for miles.
Today was a prime example of the latter case. Skuld had spent most of her morning clicking away at a game of Minesweeper, which gets kind of old if you can consistently clear a full-sized playing board in under half a minute.
Debugging just wasn't a task fit for a genius.
What made it even worse was the fact that her older sister Belldandy, had been out of touch for over a month. She had emailed her other sister Urd to inquire about Bell's whereabouts several days previous, but Urd had yet to reply.
Stifling a yawn, she checked her email yet again, despite the fact that no one ever mailed her anything.
Except this time, someone had.
"Skuld," the note read. "Urd here. Bell's in big trouble. Will be over shortly."
Keiichi Morisato sat down on the floor of his kitchen and buried his head in his hands. In front of him (due to an extraordinary lack of foresight on the part of his sempai) were three massive, oddly-shaped packages, sloppily closed with masking tape. Leaning up against the largest of them was a pair of motorcycle tires, and in front of the whole shebang was a brand new two cylinder Kawasaki motorcycle engine.
There definitely wasn't enough room in the kitchen to put it together. On top of that, even if there was, Mara would almost certainly get angry about it. After giving it a minute's thought, he picked up the telephone and dialed the front desk.
"Front desk. Akiko speaking."
"Hi, this is Keiichi Morisato calling," he said into the phone. "I've got a stupid question for you."
"Oh, you're Megumi's brother, right?"
Keiichi nodded. "Yeah, that's me. Anyway, what I was wondering is if I could borrow a little space in the building's garage."
"How come?" Her voice sounded skeptical.
"Well, see, I'm a member of the school auto club, and the guys kinda dumped the job of building the bike on me--and there's not enough space to do it up here in my apartment, and even if there was, I wouldn't be able to get a whole bike down two flights of stairs. Anyway, it'll only be for a about week or so."
"Well," said Akiko, "lemme go run and ask my boss. I'll be right back."
"Sure."
Dimly, Keiichi could make out the sound of a conversation taking place on the other end of the line, although he could not tell what was being said. After a few minutes' deliberation, Akiko returned to the telephone. "Mr. Morisato?"
"Yes?"
"Yeah, it's all right for you to build your bike in the garage. Just try not to take up too much space, okay?"
"Oh, of course," he replied. "And thank you."
"My pleasure," she said brightly.
Bidding her a quick goodbye, he set the telephone back up on its hook and surveyed the boxes. They all looked awfully heavy. Figuring it might be best to get worst of the work out of the way on the first trip, he leaned over and picked up the largest of the three boxes, grunting under it's considerable weight. Leaning back slightly to counterbalance the mass of the box, he shuffled sideways up to the entrance of his apartment, propped the package up on one knee, and maneuvered the door open with his free hand.
He turned around and staggered backward out the door, only to be scared almost clean out of his shoes by a small yelp from in the hall behind him.
"Oh!" It was Verdandi; he could tell by the voice. "Oh my! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bump into you like that. Do you need any help?"
"I'm fine," he grunted. "It's just a bit heavy."
"What's in it?" she asked.
Keiichi, now free of the door, swung around and aimed for the stairwell. "Motorcycle," he squeaked out after taking in a quick breath of air, arms shaking slightly under the weight his ponderous cargo. "Taking it down to the garage. Could you get the door for me?" he asked, motioning toward the door to the stairwell with his head.
Verdandi nodded and did as he had asked. He managed a strained smile at her as he shambled by. "Thanks, Verdandi."
Climbing down the stairs was a long and painstaking process, and when he finally reached the bottom floor, he was unsure of how he had managed it without falling to his doom, or at least dropping the box.
"Wow!" Akiko exclaimed as he stumbled into the lobby, "that looks heavy!"
Keiichi just nodded at her, his face red with exertion; by this time he was so out of breath that he could barely speak.
"Here," she said, coming out from her station behind the desk, "the door to the garage is back this way."
He followed her slowly through a long hallway, at the end of which was a heavy metal door. She held it open for him and stood aside as he passed through. Once he had staggered but a few feet into the garage, he let the box down as quickly as he could without damaging its contents and then sat down on the floor to catch his breath.
"You all right?" Akiko ventured.
"Yeah," he said between gasps, reaching up to wipe off the layer of sweat that had formed on his forehead. "Fine. That was the worst of 'em."
He looked back into the hallway, his attention drawn suddenly to the sound of clinking metal parts. Leaning over to see past Akiko, he could plainly see Verdandi struggling to carry the second box into the garage after him. Despite his fatigue, he stood quickly and ran back into the hallway to help her out.
"Jeez, Verdandi!" he said, getting his arms under the box so as to relieve her of its bulk, "You didn't have to do this."
"You looked," she said, panting heavily, "like you needed ... some help."
"Well, thanks," he replied, again straining under the weight. This package was lighter than the previous one, but not by a large margin.
She followed him into the garage and leaned on the doorway to catch her breath as Keiichi stacked the second box on top of the first. As he looked up, he found that she suddenly looked very pretty, standing there all flushed and breathless. For someone to help him completely out of the blue like that was such a rare thing.
Feeling his eyes on her, she glanced back at him. The two of them stayed like that for several seconds, just gazing at one another, until Keiichi finally broke the silence. "Really, Verdandi. I appreciate it. That box must have been really heavy for you."
"I can help you with the rest if you'd like."
He shook his head. "No, really, Verdandi. It's fine ... this bike is my responsibility. I can take care of it myself." He smiled at her, a soft, kindly smile that made her heart race. "But thanks for offering."
"I'm doing the best I can, Urd! It's just not in there!"
Urd stopped pacing back and forth. This wasn't working at all. She had been collaborating with Skuld in an attempt to figure out what had happened to Belldandy, but their efforts so far had turned up nothing. Standing just behind Skuld's chair, she peered over her raven-haired younger sister's shoulder at the screen.
"So it's not in the wish records either. So, how else then could Belldandy have forgotten who she was?" Urd paused a moment in thought, and then continued. "Skuld, can you bring up a copy of Belldandy's personal file? We might find some answers in there."
Skuld looked at Urd in shock. "You know that's against the rules! We aren't allowed to do that, and if we got caught--" She was interrupted by Urd's glare and hand over her mouth.
"Not so loud, brat!" Urd hissed, "You want to help Belldandy, don't you? Now are you going to be quiet, or are you going to let Bell stay like this?"
Skuld gave her eldest sister an icy glare to show her displeasure, but eventually relented and nodded. As Urd removed her hand, Skuld shifted her focus back to the screen and started typing, trying to hack into the Yggdrasil mainframe.
"If somebody finds out about this..." Skuld's warning trailed off with Urd's shrug.
"But nobody will if you don't tell anyone, so quit your whining and get to work." Urd patted Skuld's head, much to her chagrin.
Once she had settled into the task, it didn't take long for Skuld to gain access to the Immortal Database records. Urd nodded quietly to herself; her little sister was a genius--that much was readily apparent. ... almost worthy of admiration. Now, if she'd just grow up a little bit.
After a few minutes, Skuld's constant tapping on the keyboard came to a dead stop.
"No way." She whispered, looking at the monitor as if she had seen a ghost. She slowly reached down and touched the enter key, but the computer beeped in protest. "This is impossible. Things like this don't happen!"
Urd became curious. "What are you going on about now?"
Skuld turned around to look at her sister, and pointed to a line of red colored text on the screen. "I can't get into Belldandy's file because it's not accessible. If I didn't know better, I'd say someone encrypted it." Shaking her head, she began typing furiously again, a look of hard concentration in her eyes.
"This is impossible! This is a system table--nobody is allowed to make changes to it. Only a few select people can even read the entries."
"Well," Urd replied, "apparently someone did make some changes, because they're sitting right there in front of your face."
"Look, Urd." Skuld was rapidly becoming annoyed. "I know this program inside and out. Even if somebody got in and managed to read Bell's record, there's no way they could make the change. The system keeps the records locked unless it's modifying them itself--and that only takes a few hundredths of a second at a time. It'd be impossible for somebody to time something like that!"
"Skuld," said Urd slowly, "look at the screen and tell me exactly what you see."
"An encrypted record," she answered grudgingly.
"Now, did the Yggdrasil System encrypt that record by itself?"
Skuld shook her head. "I know how the program works. It couldn't have."
"Then," Urd prompted, "that means that somehow ..."
"Someone broke into the system," Skuld finished languidly.
"Now, is there anything you can do to break the encryption?"
Skuld sighed. "I already tried. It's using some kind of non-repeating recursive key."
"A what?"
"A recursive key. They're infinitely long, which makes it impossible to break the encryption." Skuld clenched her fists in frustration while Urd starting pacing again, mulling over what had just been said. A moment later, Urd glanced back at Skuld to see her typing furiously again, a look of determination once more on her face.
"Look, Urd! I found something!" Skuld was pointing proudly at Keiichi Morisato's record, which Urd had already checked her self some time before.
"So what? I already saw this. Belldandy was supposed to grant this guy a wish, but the contract hasn't been initiated yet."
"I know that!" Skuld snapped, "Look further down, though. It says he already has an active wish, even though Bell hasn't granted him one yet! Maybe if you weren't such a big dummy, you'd notice these things the first time around!"
Urd's eye twitched. She wanted give a retort, but she was cut off when Skuld punched a few keys on the keyboard and continued.
Skuld looked back over her shoulder at her elder sibling. "The search on who granted that wish is coming up blank, though ... who do you think could have--"
"Mara," said Urd.
"Keiichi, did you get those boxes out of my living room yet?"
Keiichi looked up from his books on the kitchen table at the sound of Mara's voice coming from the TV room. "Yeah," he called back, "I took them down to the garage a while ago."
Hearing no reply, he assumed she was satisfied, and went back to mulling over the particularly difficult electrical engineering problem that had been baffling him for the better part of the last hour.
It was a simple resistive network. A monkey with an abacus could solve it, given enough time--it was just that the stress and lack of sleep over the past couple days was beginning to wear down on Keiichi's brain. Frustrated to the point that his eyes were hurting, he shut his book and went to the fridge for a can of 7-Up. He had just opened it and was about to tilt it back for a long, refreshing swig, when he was interrupted by a knock at the door.
"Hey, Kei!" said his sister's voice. "Ya busy?"
"No," he lied as he opened the door. Megumi was standing out in the hallway, smiling brightly. "So, what's up?" he asked.
"Verdandi tells me the guys from the club brought over the bike you're s'posed to race," Megumi explained. "She said it's not quite assembled yet."
"That's a bit of an understatement."
"Anyway," she continued, "if you want me to help out, I'd like to. Wait 'til Dad hears that I helped build the bike that won you the race!"
Keiichi grimaced. "Oh, that's all I need is more pressure."
"Sorry, Kei," she said, giving him a friendly slap on the shoulder. "Didn't mean to be pushy. I guess you're probably kinda frazzled right now ... but I really would like to help."
Keiichi nodded. "All right. How 'bout I show you the bike, then?"
Stepping out into the hallway, he shut the door behind him and led Meg down the stairwell and into the garage. The bike was in the same state he had left it several hours ago, in that it really wasn't recognizable as a bike just yet. Pieces of the frame were arranged on the floor in the way they were pictured in the instruction book, but he had yet to undertake the daunting task of actually assembling it.
"Well, then," said Megumi, after surveying the work they had ahead of them, "let's get to it!"
Optimism in the face of adversity. It was a trait that Keiichi had somehow lost over the past few weeks. The strange thing about it was that, being with an amazing woman like Mara, he should have been feeling more confident in himself. Somehow, though, it just wasn't working out that way.
Fortunately, though, Megumi had enough optimism for both of them, and she went about happily reading the manual as Keiichi produced more small parts from the boxes and attempted to make some sense of them.
"Hey Keiichi?" Megumi ventured, looking up from her reading as a thought occurred to her. "Are you and Mara happy together?"
Keiichi nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. Why do you ask?"
"Because I think Verdandi kinda--"
"Hi guys!"
Megumi caught her breath quickly as she looked up to see Verdandi walk into the garage from the lobby, carrying a tray. "Oh, hi Verdandi!" Megumi exclaimed, trying her best to sound natural.
"How's the bike coming?"
"Slowly," said Keiichi flatly.
"We'll get it done in time, though," Meg added.
"I thought maybe the two of you would like some tea." Verdandi knelt down on the concrete floor and placed the tray on the ground in front of her.
Keiichi looked up. "Actually, that would hit the spot right about now. Thanks!"
Pausing to pass a cup to Keiichi, she looked up again. "Megumi?"
"Hm?" Megumi set the manual down on the floor. "Yeah, that'd be great."
The three of them sat down for a while, sipping their tea and discussing the events of the day and next weekend's race. All in all, it was the first relaxing moment Keiichi could remember experiencing in quite a while. Their tea break, as well as the associated relaxation, came to an abrupt halt at the sound of yet another voice coming from the doorway.
"Well, I see you didn't bother to invite me to your little tea party." Mara was standing just inside the garage, looking peeved.
"Oh," said Verdandi, "I'm really sorry about that. It's just that Keiichi and Megumi were down here, and I thought they might want a break. Would you like some as well?"
"What, some of that crap you think passes for tea?" she sniffed. "Hardly! I came down here to discuss something important with Keiichi."
Verdandi hung her head wordlessly and set her cup down.
"What's up?" Keiichi asked, pleased at the sudden attention the goddess was giving him.
"It's about the race, dear." Her eyes became hard. "I won't accept a loss from you. I don't want the whole campus knowing I'm shacking up with some kind of loser."
"Well," he stammered, "I'll--I'll try my best."
"If you ever want me to even look at you again, your best damn well better be good enough."
"Mara," said Verdandi quietly, "I think--"
"Did I ask what you think?" Mara snapped.
"I--" Verdandi trailed off, unsure of how to reply.
Satisfied, Mara turned and walked out without another word. Keiichi took a dejected sip from his teacup and sighed.
"This is it," said Urd.
She and Skuld were standing at the base of a set of stairs that ran up to an old, run-down temple.
"This is where we're going to be staying?" Skuld gaped incredulously at the place. The front door was in a state of extreme disrepair, the windows were completely gone, and a part of the roof looked as if it were sagging.
"I used to play out here when I was a kid," explained Urd nostalgically. "Of course, people were here to take care of it back then, so it looked a lot nicer. But anyway, it's a roof above our heads, and it's reasonably close to where Belldandy is living."
Skuld stepped up the stairs and poked her head inside the building. The front hall was a large, empty room with a coat of dust and grime on the floor left by years of neglect. "Ewww, this place is gross!" she cried, her voice echoing off of the bare walls.
Urd sighed. "Quit being such a whiny brat, Skuld! We're doing this for Belldandy's sake, remember?"
"Yeah," she said resignedly. "I know, I know. But I just wish we could stay somewhere a bit cleaner."
Urd stepped inside and set their luggage up against the wall--she had been carrying Skuld's as well as her own. Skuld, meanwhile, explored the rest of the building, a look of distaste in her eyes. There were four bedrooms as well as a small kitchen area, all equally filthy. Shaking her head in disgust, she walked back out into the entry way. She continued on past Urd, who was busy rummaging through her suitcase, and stepped outside. When Urd did not follow, she glanced back over her shoulder. "You coming?"
Urd looked at her strangely. "Coming where?"
"To go save Belldandy. That's why we're here, isn't it?"
"Skuld," Urd said sternly, "come back in here for a minute."
The young, dark-haired goddess did as she was asked, but stared up at her elder sister belligerently--it was obvious from Urd's tone that she was about to receive a lecture.
"Don't you think I want to rush in and save Belldandy as well?"
"Yeah, but--"
"No buts. We're not just up against Mara here, Skuld. Whatever wish Keiichi made, she's got the Infernal Power working on her side now--we can't just barge in there and take Bell back. It simply won't work. And besides, Mara said that if I 'meddled' anymore, she would hurt Belldandy. I can't take the risk that I wouldn't be fast enough to stop her."
Urd was right. The Infernal Power, Skuld knew, was the force that acted to preserve any wish granted by a demoness. If Keiichi's wish were somehow threatened by Bell getting her memory back--which, presumably it was--there would simply be no way around it. Trying to confront the Infernal Power was, in a word, futile.
This having occurred to Skuld, she put her fists on her hips and stared up at Urd angrily. "Well," she demanded, "if we can't do anything, then why are we staying in this icky place, anyway?"
"Because we don't know all the facts yet," said Urd. "You know how wishes work. Maybe we'll eventually stumble upon something that will work to our advantage. For now, though, what we need to do is sit tight, and make sure our sister is okay." Urd looked around at the empty room and sighed. "And we really need to clean this place up. Here," she added, summoning a broom out of thin air and handing it to her little sister.
Skuld pouted, and accepted the broom reluctantly.
"Yo, Morisato!" said a loud voice, from the door to the lobby. "It's great to see you putting some time in for the sake of the club!"
Keiichi and Megumi looked up from their partially completed motorcycle. It had been several days worth of work, but they had somehow managed to stay ahead of schedule; the frame was built and the engine mounted, leaving only the wheels and the steering column yet to be done.
Standing in the entrance of the garage was the massive Tamiya, toting a large box. Beside him stood Ootaki, holding what appeared to be another bike frame, this one somewhat longer than the one they had been working on for the past few days. Keiichi glanced up at them apprehensively, the implications of their appearance suddenly dawning on him.
"Great news, Morisato!" said Tamiya expansively. "We got you a second engine to put on your bike!" He lumbered in and set the box down beside a slightly distressed Keiichi.
"But--"
"You wouldn't believe the trouble we went through to find it!" Tamiya interrupted. "There's no limit on engine displacement, so with this, it will double your horsepower and blow those other guys right off the track!"
Keiichi stared at the other box, a look of abject terror forming on his face. This was really not a good thing to have happen right now.
"B--but--" Keiichi stood up and raised his hand, trying vainly to get a word in edgewise.
"Morisato, this is excellent!" Tamiya exclaimed, cutting him off once again. He leaned down and peered at the motorcycle in front of him, examining the engine. "Wonderful! Beautiful!" Standing straight, he continued. "But with this," He paused theatrically, motioning toward the box, "we're sure to win!"
Keiichi had had enough. "Now wait a minute! Megumi and I have been working on this thing practically non-stop for the past three days, and we're almost finished!" He put his hands on his hips and took a breath. "Besides, a twin engine will be way too heavy, and any extra horsepower we gain might be lost due to vibrations in the frame."
Tamiya grabbed Keiichi with a massive arm and held him to his chest. "But you don't understand what I'm saying!" Tears started to pour dramatically from his eyes. "We're drag racing heroes to our fans; if this engine increases our chances of winning even just one percent, we've got to do it!"
"But it won't..." Keiichi barely mumbled out, his face pressed into Tamiya's jacket.
Tamiya continued, paying scant attention to Keiichi's feeble objections. "This is the spirit that has made our auto club great! Your not going to let us down, are you Morisato?"
"Uh, Tamiya..." said Megumi, placing a hand on the club president's arm, "we get the point."
"Well, then!" he exclaimed, letting a now blue Keiichi drop unceremoniously to the ground. "The race is in three days. You're our man Morisato! We know you can do it!"
Ootaki, meanwhile, set the extra frame down onto the ground and gave the two of them a thumbs up. "Well dudes," he said, turning to follow Tamiya out of the garage, "were countin' on ya!" The heavy metal door closed behind them with a resounding thud, leaving Keiichi and Megumi alone in the garage with their new project.
Hearing a sigh, Megumi looked over at her brother, who was sitting with his legs crossed, examining the blueprints skeptically.
"Uh, Kei," she said quietly, "if you're going to use this twin engine, we've got to come up with some expansion calculations, because there's no way we can trust that new frame those guys brought over."
Keiichi nodded, pointing to a particular section on the blueprint. "This is definitely gonna be a problem. If we're not careful, the stress factor of these two engines will tear the frame apart." He shrugged and hung his head. "I can fix some of this, but there just isn't enough time for me to completely recalculate everything. As it is, we've pretty much gotta rebuild the whole thing from scratch, which'll probably take until the night before the race, if we work our butts off."
Megumi squared her shoulders. "Well, we'll just have to make some educated guesses, and hope for the best."
"I really don't like the sound of that."
"No point getting discouraged," Megumi admonished. "We've got our work cut out for us, and we can't afford to waste time sulking about it."
Keiichi and Megumi finally managed to finish the bike at quarter after three in the morning, on the day of the race; consequently, Keiichi had not slept very well when Tamiya called to wake him up a few hours later.
"Hello?" he mumbled drearily into the telephone.
"Ahh, Morisato!" Keiichi winced at the loud voice at the other end of the line, holding the telephone a few inches away from his ear. "It's the big day! Time to get your lazy butt outta bed and head out to the racetrack!"
Keiichi brushed a lock of hair from his face and glanced owlishly at his alarm clock. "Tamiya, it's six-thirty, for cryin' out loud. The race doesn't start til noon!"
"But that only leaves us five and a half hours to get there and rally the support of our fans! If it increases our chances of winning just one percent, then--"
"--we've got to do it," Keiichi finished lamely. "All right," he continued, stifling a yawn, "I'll meet you at the club pavilion in an hour or so."
"That's the spirit, Morisato!" the voice from the receiver bellowed. "I know you won't let the club down!"
"Bye, Tamiya," Keiichi mumbled, hanging up the telephone. Yawning again, he scratched his nose and pulled himself laboriously to a sitting position. "This is gonna be a long day," he said to no one in particular.
Climbing slowly out of bed, he made his way into the bathroom and took a quick shower, then plodded into the kitchen to make breakfast. He was poking through the refrigerator when he heard a firm knock on the door.
"Who could be here at this hour?" he wondered to himself as he shambled over to answer it.
He opened the door and found himself face-to-face with his sister, who was looking pretty irked. She was dressed in her club racing outfit, and her leather coat was slung over her shoulder. "Did you tell him to call and wake me up?" she grumbled.
Keiichi, still dressed in his bathrobe, shook his head. "No, but lemme guess ... Tamiya. Am I right?" He stood aside, motioning for her to come in.
She nodded, rubbing her eyes blearily, then puffed up her chest and launched into a fairly impressive imitation of their overzealous sempai. "Ahh, Morisato!" she said, in a voice as loud and deep as her vocal cords would allow. "It's time to get your lazy butt outta bed and head down to the racetrack! Today's the big day!"
Keiichi couldn't help but laugh as he shut the door behind his sister. "I was just about to have some breakfast. You want anything?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I'll have whatever you do."
There was another knock at the door.
Keiichi looked back over his shoulder at the source of the sound. "Jeez! What is it this morning?" When he opened the door this time, he was surprised to see Verdandi standing out in the hallway holding a tea service, and looking bright as the midday sun.
"Hey, Keiichi! I know you and Megumi were up pretty late last night working on your bike, so when I heard her come over here, I thought maybe the two of you would like some coffee to help you wake up a bit."
Even in his foul mood, it was hard to see that smile and not smile back. "That'd be great, Verdandi," he replied. "Please come in."
He led her inside to the kitchen table, where Megumi had already taken a seat and was digging into a bowl of cold cereal. "You want any?" he asked. The box made a pleasant rustling sound as he shook it.
"Sure, that'd be great!"
Keiichi poured a dish of cereal for her, and another for himself, then took a seat at the table. "Ya know, Verdandi, you really didn't have to get up this early. The race doesn't start for a couple hours yet."
"Well," she said thoughtfully, pouring three cups of coffee and passing them out, "it was the least I could do, especially since the two of you have been working so hard getting that bike put together."
"What the hell is all this racket?" Mara was standing just inside the kitchen, wearing a hastily-donned kimono and looking sourly at them.
"Oh," Keiichi replied, "sorry to wake you. Tamiya called about the race and got us all up ... we'll try to quiet down a bit, though."
Mara sniffed. "It's too late for that now. I'm already up." She walked over to the kitchen counter, taking the box of cereal from the table as she passed. Pouring a bowl for herself, she sat down at the table.
"Would you like a cup of coffee, Mara?" Verdandi asked, already moving to pour her some.
Mara gave a dramatic sigh. "Oh, fine, whatever."
Verdandi handed her the cup, and she took a sip or two and made a face. She then shoveled some cereal into her mouth and took another sip of her coffee, glowering at the three of them all the while.
Once everyone had finished eating and gotten dressed, they made their way out to the race track, and found that was already bustling with activity despite the fact that it was only eight in the morning. Keiichi led them to the obnoxiously-colored Nekomi Auto Club pavilion, where they were greeted by a resounding cheer from the substantial crowd of club members who were already present. The bike, which Keiichi had driven out to their site before he had gone to bed, was up near the inner wall of the tent where he had left it.
"Ahh, Morisato!" Tamiya put a massive arm around Keiichi's shoulder, causing him to groan inwardly. "Look around you at this team spirit! How could we possibly lose with a club like this?"
"I'll tell you how," said a quiet, level voice from the doorway.
"Just who do you think you are?" Tamiya demanded of the newcomer, a tall, thin, well-dressed man with short hair and glasses.
"I," the visitor replied haughtily, "am Toshiyuki Aoshima, the president of the Nekomi Tech Four Wheels Club. And I must say, that is a pretty impressive-looking bike you've got there--if you're into driving junk, anyway. I see you even slapped on an extra engine at the last minute. What a bunch of losers," he added emphatically, shaking his head in mock sympathy.
"Now you listen here, mister!" said Megumi, walking right up to him and making a fist. "We put a lot of effort into--"
"That's enough, Morisato!" Tamiya boomed, striking a dramatic pose. "Members of the Nekomi Tech Auto Club do not boast! They win, with their drive and determination!"
Aoshima smiled condescendingly and patted Tamiya on the back. "That will be decided when we race, will it not?"
"Keiichi," Mara whispered, clamping onto her boyfriend's arm, "remember what I said to you ... if you lose this race and embarrass me, don't expect to ever speak to me again."
Keiichi swallowed, trying the best he could to hide the look of apprehension in his eyes.
Verdandi was nervous, excited, and slightly scared, all at the same time. The roar of activity around the event was a bit more than the quiet girl was used to; she felt somewhat out of place among the scantily-dressed women and the hordes of hooting, hollering guys. She could tell by looking at Keiichi that he too was feeling somewhat apprehensive about the race, but Mara was guarding him like a hawk, seeing to it that no one could get close to him long enough to get a word in.
Once they were sure the bike was fueled and ready to go, the club dispersed for a while to kill the time before the race started. Verdandi, along with Keiichi, Mara, and Megumi, wandered out of the large Nekomi Auto Club tent toward some vendors along the side of the track for a look around. A good many of them were selling food; Keiichi bought himself and the three ladies each a hot dog and soda, which they devoured hungrily.
A select few of the merchants there had decided to capitalize on the event with some more substantial sales--there were two or three small booths selling clothing, mostly brand-name racing gear, and another one with a spirited salesman who was very enthusiastically trying to convince every single passer-by that they absolutely had to purchase some of his jewelry.
Verdandi, modest as she was, was still drawn to the idea of buying jewelry, so she stopped over for a closer look at the man's wares. Mara and Megumi did likewise, obviously of a similar mind, and Keiichi followed them over with a resigned expression on his face.
"Buy me that one," Mara demanded of Keiichi, pointing to one particular ring on display.
Something about the ring she pointed to gave Verdandi a shock. It was almost as if she had seen it before, in some long-forgotten childhood memory.
Keiichi fished nervously through his wallet. "I'm really sorry, Mara, but I don't have enough money for it. I'll make it up to you, though, if--"
"Don't bother," she stated. "I've given up on expecting you to act like a real man."
For a moment, Verdandi felt like it was herself standing in Mara's place. The effect was dizzying, to say the least--like a bad dream. She looked back and forth between Keiichi and Mara. It shouldn't have been like that. That's not what she was supposed to say! That's not even supposed to be her there! Why do I keep feeling like I'm getting Deja Vu? Am I going crazy?
"Verdandi?"
Startled, Verdandi gasped, feeling Megumi's hand touch her arm.
"Are you all right?" she asked. "You looked like you kinda zoned out there for a minute."
Verdandi exhaled shakily. "I--yeah, I think so. I'm sorry."
"Did you feel that?"
Skuld glanced up at Urd, who looked absolutely ridiculous wearing a trench coat, fedora, and dark glasses. "Feel what?"
The elder Norn shook her head, then sidestepped so she could see around a group of racing fans who had moved in and were now blocking her view of Belldandy. "I guess you probably won't be able to feel auras until you get a bit older ... but I think I almost felt Bell's normal aura for a second there."
"What do you think it means?" Skuld asked.
Urd considered. "I honestly don't know."
"Maybe we should go see what they were looking at," the young, dark-haired goddess suggested. "Something over there might have triggered it."
"Good idea ... but wait until they leave. If Mara sees us here, there's bound to be trouble."
Skuld nodded in agreement. Leaning up against the outside of a small gazebo, the two of them watched as the group poked around the booth for a little while, and then moved on. Resolutely, the two goddesses walked up to investigate the matter.
"Why hello, ladies!" exclaimed the young man behind the booth. "You're both looking absolutely marvelous today! Perhaps I can interest you in some of my fine merchandise." He gestured proudly at his glass-covered displays, which held an impressive variety of expensive rings, earrings, necklaces, and bracelets.
Skuld and Urd scrutinized the contents of each display case, trying to find anything that might have triggered some sort of reaction in Bell. Finally, they looked at each other and shrugged silently.
"Have you made up your minds, ladies?"
"We'll come back another time," Urd declared. "Thank you."
Crestfallen, the jeweler followed the two strange foreigners with his gaze as they walked away.
"Did you see anything?" Urd asked quietly.
"No," whispered Skuld. "Did you?"
Urd shook her head. "Not a thing."
"What could it be about a jewelry stand that would have such an effect on Bell?" Skuld mused.
Urd touched her chin thoughtfully. "I'm not sure. Maybe it was just something that someone said, or it could be that she saw something that reminded her of her past. It's hard to say, really."
Skuld looked up at her sister, suddenly angry. "Well what good does that do us?" she snapped. "I want Belldandy back!"
"We'll get her back," Urd replied emphatically. "It's just going to take some time, that's all."
The hours leading up to the race passed slower than Keiichi would have liked; he spent most of the intervening time fretting about problems with the stability of the bike's frame, which he had discovered when he drove it the previous night. They would all be watching him--the judges, the crowd, the club, Ootaki, Tamiya, Megumi, and Verdandi. And Mara. According to her, losing just wasn't an option.
He paced back and forth nervously along the edge of the track as the noon hour approached. His opponent, a serious young man from a nearby community college, paid him little attention and went about checking his bike, an old Honda CBX that had obviously seen better days.
Keiichi had checked and rechecked his own bike several times since his arrival that morning; he eventually decided that further inspections would do him no good, so he had simply walked it out to the track and parked it, ignoring the quips and comments about his hastily-assembled Frankenstein machine coming from the opposing auto club members and their fans.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a woman's voice came up over the loudspeaker and announced that the first race was about to begin. Keiichi swallowed, a swarm of butterflies already gathering in his stomach. Megumi and Verdandi wished him luck, the former with a sisterly hug, and the latter with a smile. Mara did him no such favor, although he hardly expected her to.
Keiichi squared his shoulders and, alone among the hundreds of people present, he approached his bike. Giving it a final once-over just to be sure everything was in order, he slung his leg over it and took a seat. The engines revved eagerly as he turned the ignition key and twisted the throttle, testing it.
"Racers," the announcer's voice echoed, "take your places."
Taking a deep breath, Keiichi slipped his helmet over his head. The roar of the crowd seemed distant and muffled through his headgear, almost like the calm roar of the ocean. He felt strangely relaxed as he glanced back and forth through his darkened visor, a shield between himself and the rest of the world.
Alone.
Alone was good. It was just him, the bike, and the road. That, he could handle.
He focused his eyes on the man with the gun at the far end of the track. He had been taught to watch when the gun fired, because by the time the sound reached him, he would already be at a disadvantage--and races could be won and lost in a few milliseconds. His body tensed, the gun flashed, and he hit the throttle.
He leaned forward, clutching his seat with his legs as he accelerated; it was all he could do to keep his front wheel on the ground. The engines howled, and the wind thundered by his ears like the rumble of an earthquake. As he approached 120kph, the frame began to shake violently. Struggling to keep the bike stable, he cast a quick glance in his side mirror and saw that he was ahead of his opponent by several tenths of a second. Relieved, he eased off on the throttle just slightly so as not to lose control of his machine.
The other bike closed in on him in the last few seconds of the race, but not fast enough to take the victory from Keiichi. He shot past the finish line at over two hundred kilometers per hour, and brought the bike slowly to a halt on the remaining track. Glancing back, he noticed that the scoreboard read 7.928 to 8.016; he had taken the race by just under a tenth of a second--not a lot of leeway, certainly, but a respectable victory nonetheless. The twin engines had afforded him the extra acceleration at the beginning of the race that he had needed to win.
Keiichi removed his helmet and hung it on his handlebars as he drove his motorcycle slowly back down the track.
"And the winner," echoed the voice from the speakers, "is Keiichi Morisato, of the Nekomi Tech Auto Club!"
Wiping the sweat off of his brow, he looked up at the faces of the crowd in the bleachers as the announcer related the details of his victory. Keiichi had won the first round; he and his grotesque, dual-engined monster had earned their respect.
"Hey, nice job, bro! You kicked some ass out there!" Ootaki gave Keiichi a friendly slap on the back as he walked the bike back into the auto club's pavilion. He leaned over and continued quietly. "But just between you and me, dude, I noticed ya hesitated a bit out there. Everything okay with the bike?"
Keiichi sighed, still slightly out of breath from the race. "Not really, no. The frame's shaking so bad I can hardly keep control of it."
"Well, I'll do what I can, okay?"
Keiichi nodded. "Thanks."
As he took a seat in one of the club's numerous wooden folding chairs, Ootaki gathered the rest of the club members around him and began barking orders for adjustments to be made to the frame. Megumi, meanwhile, came in from outside and sat down beside him. "Frame still shaking?"
"Like a jackhammer," he answered. "Even when I was in control of it, I half expected the thing to fall apart right out from under me."
"Well," she said, the look of concern plain on her face, "don't take any crazy risks, all right?"
Keiichi nodded in agreement.
The minutes passed by, and, still seated, Keiichi watched the guys from the club working frantically to install a balancer and a set of rubber bearings on his motorcycle. Mara came and went several times, casting him barely a glance as she cavorted with some of the other guys in the area.
Verdandi and Megumi paid him more attention, and occasionally the hulking Tamiya would stop by to offer words of encouragement. As irritating as he could be sometimes, Keiichi looked up to him as one would an older brother; Tamiya's ardent commendations of his efforts thus far were heartening. Underneath his sempai's tough and often intimidating exterior was the soul of an idealist--someone who could inspire people to action, at least when he wasn't acting like a complete imbecile.
Once the din and ruckus had died down somewhat in anticipation of the semi-finals, Verdandi took a seat beside Keiichi and gave him a warm smile. "How's it going?" she asked.
"Oh, not too bad," he replied, blushing slightly. "A little nervous, I guess."
"There's nothing to worry about, Keiichi. As long as you try your best, there's nothing more anyone can ask of you."
Keiichi let out a sigh. "It'd be nice if Mara thought of it that way."
Verdandi placed her hand on his shoulder and looked straight at him. He could see his own image reflecting back at him from her deep blue eyes, the face of a weak, frightened boy. What chance did someone like him have in a competition like this?
"Keiichi," she said softly, but with an uncharacteristic note of sternness. "It doesn't matter what Mara thinks of you, or anyone else for that matter. What matters is that, no matter how you do, you always believe in yourself. If you do that, then even though you may have some setbacks from time to time, you'll always be a winner."
Keiichi nodded dumbly.
"I believe," she continued, "that you can win this race ... but if that doesn't happen, that won't change a thing about the way I see you."
He looked at her again and swallowed, unsure of what to say. "Thanks," he whispered finally. "I needed to hear someone say that."
"It's the truth," she said.
A woman dressed in a trench coat and a fedora watched the two them from the far corner of the auto club's makeshift clubhouse, a smile slowly appearing on her face.
"The nerve of that guy!" Megumi crossed her arms and looked angrily at the bike belonging to the Nekomi Tech Four Wheels Club.
Akiko, Megumi's recent acquaintance and receptionist from her apartment building, was standing beside her, leaning up against the wall in front of the bleachers. "What guy?" she asked.
"That Aoshima guy. He barges into Nekomi Tech with all his parents' money, and decides to start his own racing club, because apparently we're not good enough for him!" She followed the bike with her eyes as it took its place at the starting line for the first of the two races in the semi-final. In the first race, the same bike--apparently driven by a hired professional--had come in at around seven and a half seconds, beating its opponent by a very wide margin.
Akiko shook her head. "C'mon, Megumi. Would you really want a guy like him in your club anyway?"
"No, I guess not ... but that doesn't make him any less of a jerk!"
"You've got a point there," Akiko conceded.
The loudspeakers screeched for a moment, then shuffled slightly and became silent. "Next up," the announcer's voice blared, "the Waseda University racing team, versus the heavily-favored NIT Four Wheels club. Gentlemen, start your engines!"
The crowd roared, the gun fired, and the two bikes sped off toward the finish line. Megumi watched with feigned disinterest as the Four Wheels Club won its second race by an even wider margin than the first. She withheld her applause as the results were announced.
"Well," Akiko sighed, "looks like they're heading to the finals."
"Great," said Megumi darkly.
Akiko pointed back toward the Auto Club's pavilion at the young man emerging from the tent with his bike. "That's your brother over there, isn't it?"
Megumi nodded.
"Think he'll win?"
"Of course! I helped build the bike, remember?"
Akiko smiled and shook her head, but opted not to reply.
"GO KEIICHI!" Megumi yelled as her brother drove his newly-modified bike up to the starting line.
He must have managed to hear her somehow even through his helmet, because he looked over and gave her a quick thumbs-up.
"Next up, for the second and last round in the semi-finals, the NIT Auto Club, versus the North Yokohama Racing team ... Gentlemen, start your engines!"
Megumi went silent, clasping her hands together as the two drivers revved their engines. If they could just get past this race, they would have a chance to prove themselves against that jerk Aoshima and his hired goon.
The gun fired, and the race began. Keiichi took an early lead over the other bike, but, like last time, his acceleration slowed once he hit a certain speed. Megumi could tell by his position on the bike that he was having difficulty remaining stable.
The whine of the engines dropped suddenly in tone as the bikes sped past their place in the stands; Keiichi was still in the lead, and managed to remain there until just after he crossed the finish line. The final scores flashed up onto the board--7.796 to 7.831. With the modifications to the bike, her brother had managed to squeeze out just a little more speed than in the last race--and it was fortunate he had, because it was only by a few hundredths of a second that he had won.
Megumi breathed a sigh of relief as the announcer read off the times. They were through the semi-finals--all that remained was racing against the Four Wheels Club.
Once again parking his bike inside the club pavilion, Keiichi dismounted and ran his sleeve across his forehead.
"I'll say it again, dude! Nice drivin' out there!" Ootaki gave him his customary slap on the back. "Those mods work out okay for ya?"
"Well," Keiichi replied hesitantly, "they helped a little bit, but the frame's still really shaky. I had to push it harder this time to stay ahead of the other guy."
"I hate to say it, but I don't think there's anything more I could do except tear it down and rebuild the thing from scratch, but that'd take way too long."
Keiichi smiled wanly. "I guess I'll just have to hope it holds out for one more race, then."
"Well, well, well," said the voice of Toshiyuki Aoshima, easily audible over the quiet, apprehensive chatter from the entrance of the tent. "Looks like it's time for the Four Wheels Club to show all of you rejects who the real men are."
The person who confronted him, surprisingly, was none other than Mara. The room went deathly quiet as she approached him, coming to a stop just inches away from his face. She was, Keiichi noted, slightly taller than Aoshima.
"Listen to me, you arrogant, rich little bastard! The NIT Auto Club does not lose. We're going to go out there and make you wish you never started your snotty little Four Wheels Club. I promise you, little boy, you'll be crying like a baby before the sun sets." Her voice became quiet, mirroring the deathly cold fire in her eyes. "Now get the hell out of our tent."
Toshiyuki Aoshima was not one to back down easily--in fact, later on, he would wonder just why he did it. But at that moment, with that woman's eyes boring into him, it was all he could do to make a dignified exit. There was something intangible about the way she looked at him that made him want to run as fast and as far away as he possibly could.
Once the intruder was clear of the tent, she turned her stare on Keiichi. Don't you dare make a fool of me, her eyes said.
For what was probably the hundredth time that day, Keiichi swallowed hard.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Breathe in, breathe out.
The sound of his own shallow breathing under the helmet pervaded his consciousness. This is it, he told himself. It's all up to me now.
Stretching out the tendons in his hand, he looked to his left over at the Four Wheels Club machine behind the starting line on the other track. The driver was a tall man, that much he could tell, although his facial features were obscured behind the cold, reflective surface of his visor. His bike was a brand new Suzuki--a model Keiichi didn't recognize. Dressed in red and white racing clothes, he was the picture of an experienced professional. Nothing like the young, nervous Keiichi himself, that much was certain.
Win it for your sister. Win it for Verdandi. Win it for the club. And whatever you do, don't embarrass Mara.
Breathe in, breathe out.
When the announcer's voice again came over the loudspeakers, he barely heard it. His response was almost automatic; he turned the ignition key, then brought the bike slowly up to the line, gazing across the grassy median at the other racer. The Four Wheels driver did not look back.
He turned his gaze to the man with the gun.
Breathe in, breathe out. Pay attention. Stay focused.
The signal fired, and Keiichi was already speeding off down the track by the time the sound of it reached him.
Leaning once again into the bike's acceleration, he increased the throttle, all at once calm and frightened. And once again, the bike began to tremble once he hit a hundred and twenty.
Glancing into his rearview mirror for the reassuring image of the opposing driver, he was alarmed to discover that, this time, it was not there. All of a sudden, out of the corner of his eye, he saw his opponent on the other track, beginning to pull ahead of him.
All thought of keeping the bike stable left him at that point. Winning was all that mattered. If you lose, you lose everything.
Keiichi jammed the throttle as high as it would go. The twin inline engines groaned under the load, and his bike began closing the Four Wheels racer's lead. By this time, his own machine was shaking so violently that he was having difficulty holding on to the handle bar grips. Then, from underneath him, a loud clanking sound issued forth from the front engine. Breath catching in his throat, he looked down just in time to see something explode.
There was a bright flash, then weightlessness.
The engine clanking was audible even up in the stands, but by the time Megumi realized what was happening, it had already happened. She watched in horror as Keiichi looked down just in time to see one of the cylinder heads on his front engine shoot off directly into the bike's steering column. At the same time, something else shot out of the engine manifold and clipped the edge of the fuel tank, causing brief but intense explosion and obscuring Keiichi momentarily from view. The front wheel spun away from the bike, while the remaining engine whined and broke free of its mount as the machine tipped over forwards, throwing Keiichi into the air and shattering what remained of the frame.
He sailed through the air like a rag doll, tumbling limply as he hit the ground in the median. The bike, meanwhile, went up in flames, it's torn remnants dispersing all over the track among puddles of burning gasoline. Mara, Verdandi, and Megumi just stared for a few seconds at his inert form, now lying awkwardly between the two tracks, face down.
"Oh my God," Megumi whispered.
The Four Wheels bike crossed the finish line, but no one noticed.
"KEIICHI!" someone screamed. The source of the voice, surprisingly, was Mara; the young woman leapt off of the bleachers as soon as she had recovered from the shock of seeing the accident, breaking into a dead run toward the prone, unmoving Keiichi. Megumi and Verdandi followed soon after her, managing to keep ahead of the crowd of fans and club members that were converging on the field.
When Mara reached him, she turned him by the shoulder so that he was facing up, and then hastily removed his helmet. His clothes were singed and torn in places, and what remained intact, helmet included, was covered with grass stains from rolling along the ground at such a high speed.
Keiichi groaned, having been painfully jostled around. He could feel the fresh air on his face, but it took several moments for the haze from the flash to clear from his eyes. The silhouette of a woman kneeling over him came slowly into view. His ears were ringing, but he could vaguely hear her calling to him frantically. Two others arrived beside her, and he soon found himself staring up into a crowd of blurry figures.
By the time his vision had allowed him to make out their faces, all three women--his sister, Verdandi, and Mara, were kneeling down at his side. "I'm all right," he whispered hoarsely over their worried chatter. "Just a little dizzy."
"Just lie still," said a soothing voice, which he assumed to be Verdandi's.
He lay there staring up into the sky, relieved to be alive.
The crowd--at least those who had remained in their seats--began to chatter worriedly about the state of the fallen driver. The circle of people around him obscured their view; it was impossible to tell exactly what was going on.
The announcer, meanwhile, was trying her best to keep the people calm and collected, although, despite her reassurance, most of the audience was quite shaken up at this turn of events. Their attention rapt, they gazed at the group of people huddled around the crash, straining to see any sort of sign that would give some indication as to the driver's condition.
Finally, one cheer broke out from the inner circle surrounding the driver, and then another, and another. Soon the entire audience was on its feet and roaring at the sight of the boy--who, for all intents and purposes, should have been dead--pulling himself shakily to his feet, with the help of a tall blonde woman and a brunette.
Keiichi was only dimly aware of the crowd's reaction as Mara and Verdandi helped him off of the track. He was sore, scraped and burned in places, and still extremely dizzy.
He looked over at Mara, his eyes focusing on her slowly. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
The goddess was sobbing.
Some time later, Urd, Norn of the Past, and self-declared Cupid of Love, was walking back to the temple with her younger sister Skuld, Norn of the Future, and self-declared genius.
"Think he'll be all right?" Skuld ventured, breaking their uncharacteristic silence.
Urd nodded. "I'd say so, if he got up like that. He'll probably be in the hospital for a day or two, though. Oh, by the way," she added, almost as an afterthought, "I think I know how we can get Bell's memory back."
"What? How?"
Urd shook her head. "You're not gonna like this."
"Anything's better than the way she is now," Skuld replied.
"Well, don't say I didn't warn you." Urd took in a deep breath and continued. "Bell and Keiichi are in love, Skuld. I don't think they know it yet, but I can see it plain as day."
"What's that got to do with getting Bell's memory back?"
"It's like this ... we can't fight the Infernal Power ourselves. There's no way that, between just the two of us, we'd ever be able to help Bell remember."
"But I thought you said--"
"Let me finish!" she said sternly. "There's someone who can help Belldandy out, even if we can't ... and that someone is Keiichi Morisato."
Skuld looked at her sister skeptically. "But if we can't to it, what's Keiichi gonna be able to do? We're goddesses, and he's just a mortal."
"A mortal to whom Belldandy owes a wish," Urd amended.
"So?"
"Well, it's simple, really. All he has to do is wish for her. The Ultimate Force will supercede the Infernal Power because the wish was more recent, and Bell will get her memory back."
"Um, Urd, just what do you mean by 'wishing for her'?"
"I told you, Skuld. They're in love. You figure it out."
"B--but that means she'll be--"
Urd shook a finger at Skuld. "Remember what you said. Anything's better than the way she is right now ... and I have a suspicion that this may be our only chance. And besides, Keiichi Morisato is a good man--I can see these things."
"Can't he just wish for something else, though?"
Urd shook her head. "No ... If he wished for a car or a computer or something, he might get his wish ... but since having one of those things wouldn't directly conflict with Mara's contract, the Ultimate Force wouldn't take over, and Bell's memory would stay locked away."
Skuld was silent for a long while, considering. Finally, she came to a dead halt, causing Urd to turn around and look at her curiously.
"What are we going back home to the temple for, then?" Skuld demanded. "If that Keiichi person needs to wish for Bell to save her, then we gotta go make him do it!"
Urd smiled knowingly. "You haven't been studying, have you? A wish is something that has to come from the heart, Skuld. If we go over there and tell Keiichi to wish for Belldandy then, sure, he might do it, but he'd be doing it because we told him to, and not because he really meant it. Goddesses can't grant wishes that don't come from the heart."
"So that means we have to wait for him?" Skuld stammered, on the verge of tears.
"I'm afraid so," Urd replied. "The only thing we can do right now, is just keep an eye on her like we've been doing. C'mon," she added, noticing her sister's distress. "Let's head back to the temple. I think there's some ice cream in the freezer."
Together, the youngest and eldest of the Three Sisters made their way back to their makeshift abode, silently contemplating what lay ahead.