Ch 41

V 2.0

Bangkok Hospital Samui Urgent Care Clinic
Thong Sala, Koh Pha Ngan Island,
Surat Thani Province,
Gulf of Thailand
Early July
Early afternoon
(day after pirate attack/two months before story start)

Gaz was standing with his head down and slowly shaking it back and forth. Keitaro was standing in front of him, his posture straight even as his hands were clasped in front of him, his gaze fixed on his older compatriot.

"God Almighty, just when I thought it couldn't get any worse." By prior agreement, the two men were speaking Japanese again, as the chances of someone in this Thai medical clinic understanding that language was close to nil, especially since they were standing in the hallway outside of Seta's room waiting for the doctor, and there was no other way they could have a secure conversation. "I knew the coppers were involved, but this bloody well takes the biscuit. The fucking kid had to be related to a dirty cop."

"I wasn't pleased to hear about it either, Gaz." The Briton could only snort in acknowledgement; Keitaro was in even deeper trouble than they had been before, considering how he had ended up dealing with the teen pirate. "The question now is what we're going to do next. Even though Seta-sensei has been stabilized, he needs higher level medical care than can be found here. But the clock is ticking on the information I managed to get out of that pirate. We should have already been on the way to Phuket before Sarah's trail goes cold."

Gaz looked up into Keitaro's impassive face. The expressionless look he was wearing was only strengthened by the dark glasses he was still wearing even though they were indoors. When the two men had arrived at the hospital after the fight at the port container yard, Keitaro had taken off the shades in order to replace them with his regular glasses, only to be stopped once Gaz had gotten a good look at his eyes; there were bright red blotches covering the sclera, or white parts, of his eyes. Concerned that the younger man has received some sort of eye injury, the former medic questioned him closely, only for them to finally decide that Keitaro had caused subconjuctival hemorrhages when he had strained himself by overcharging his chi system doing the shunpo jump at the container yard. Keitaro had put his shades back on after he observed people flinching and wincing after seeing his now literally blood red eyes. Now they were not cringing anymore, but the ronin's currently unemotional face, coupled with the prescription sunglasses that still allowed people to see his eyes behind medium strength red tint, were causing people to shy away for another reason.

"We already ran a big risk by leaving Seta alone when we were looking for that little turd. We really can't do it again, the police are going to start sniffing around once they hear that there is a foreigner with gunshot wounds in the clinic here. We need to evac him to the mainland, and probably out of Thailand before the dirty cops start adding thing together, like what happened to your little friend at the shipping yard." Gaz watched as Keitaro considered this.

"Is there anyone around here we can either trust or pay enough to watch Seta-sensei?" Gaz blinked at the question, then though about it for a few moments.

"Actually, yes. Nikolai could do it, but it's going to take either promising him a major favor or serious cash for him to drop everything and come with a couple of shooters."

"Nikolai has access to shooters?" Keitaro had a minor look of surprise on his face.

"Yeah, you didn't see that side of his business, did you? Nik doesn't just do flying, he runs a small Private Military Contractor outfit with mostly Russian military vets here in Southeast Asia. It specializes in anti-piracy operations. He keeps it on the down-low because damn near everyone is dirty here, but mostly he supplies guards to oil tankers and large cargo ships going through the really high risk areas. More times than not they fire warning shots and the buggers take off. If they insist on pushing the issue…" Here Gaz gave a shrug. "No one's around to complain about it afterwards."

"That kind of thing happen a lot?" Keitaro now had a curious expression.

"Not with the American or British PMCs, but the Russians? You ever hear about that Russian cargo ship taken by Somali pirates off the Horn of Africa a few years ago? It was transporting military equipment, tanks and such, to Kenya, so the Russian military got involved. They stormed the ship the next day and took it back, with one pirate killed and ten taken prisoner. Somalia has no functional government to try them, the other African countries didn't want to imprison them, and the Russians didn't want to haul them back Moscow either. So they put them in an inflatable boat with no motor, no navigational gear and no food or water 500 miles off the coast and just sailed away." Gaz finished saying. Looking at his younger compatriot he could see that the curious expression had faded away, and that he did not look too bothered by his story. The silence stretched for a few moments before Keitaro spoke again.

"You worked for Nikolai, didn't you? As a PMC?" Keitaro's question did not sound judgmental; it did not sound like anything except maybe slightly curiousity. He waited for Gaz's nod before asking the next question. "Do you have Nikolai's phone number?"

"Yeah, I do. You did hear what I said about this costing some major cash, right?" Gaz pulled out a burner cell phone but did not start entering numbers yet.

"We only used a couple hundred of the ten thousand cash from the camp, I can make up the rest. And I do not think Seta will mind us using his name to get Nikolai to help us." Gaz stared at Keitaro, his fingers still on the mobile's keys.

"And if that is not enough, Keitaro?" The younger man considered this for only a moment.

"Then I start making promises of my own. Urashima keep their promises." Even with Keitaro's flat voice, this statement sounded particularly ominous.

Anything that Gaz would have said to that was interrupted by the man they were waiting for coming out of Seta's room. Tall, thin, dark complexioned, and wearing a dirty white lab coat over rumpled black slacks and white shirt, it was the doctor running this clinic.

"Oh good, you came back." The man spoke English with an Indian lilt. "I was concerned that perhaps the patient was merely left here with no one to be responsible for him." Implicit in that statement was the doctor's fear more of non-payment for services rendered rather that no one was looking out for his patient. "Your friend is a very lucky man, while his wounds are serious they are not life-threatening. No major organs were damaged and while there was some serious blood loss, we were able to replenish his blood volume with IV fluids. I was hesitant to do a blood transfusion, since the quality of the donor blood here is suspect, at best." Gaz tried not to snort at that statement. Given the AIDS epidemic ravaging Southeast Asia and especially Thailand, it was almost as bad as Haiti in the 1980s. "Also, while there are fractures in Mr. Seta's lower leg, they are easily repairable, although it cannot be done at this location, sadly." The doctor paused for a moment. "Since Mr. Seta's injuries are caused by firearms, I am obligated to report this to the police." Dread filled Gaz's thoughts while he was looking at the doctor's straight face; he could not tell if he was sincere in his statement or bucking for a bribe. Before he could reply he was interrupted by a voice beside him.

"That won't be necessary." Keitaro held open a familiar leather wallet in front of the face of a suddenly paling doctor. "Inspector Sergeant Aran Wattana, Royal Thai Police." Keitaro paused for a moment before speaking two more words that made the doctor turn positively ashen. "Special Branch."

It was all Gaz could do not to recoil in shock. Special Branch was the political intelligence and domestic security section of the national police. They were in charge of investigating crimes and possible threats to national security, as well as dealing with foreign nationals. It was also an open secret that Special Branch was involved in political oppression against opponents of the current government regime. This was probably what was frightening the doctor the most; Special Branch had been implicated in the forced disappearance of various people throughout the years.

Turning slightly to look at Keitaro out of the corner of his eye, Gaz finally realized what his younger companion had been reminding him of. The two men had changed clothes before arriving at the clinic so they would not match any description given as a result of the chase of the teen pirate earlier that day. While Gaz was now wearing a rumpled white short sleeve shirt over knee length green shorts and for once was not wearing his Union Jack ball cap, Keitaro was wearing a medium blue guayabera shirt over dark blue slacks. With his dark glasses on and the expressionless look on his face, the Urashima now looked like every plainclothes police officer they had encountered in Thailand.

"I was talking with Mr. Gaz about the incident where his colleague was injured. I was about to come looking for you to discuss Mr. Seta's injuries." Keitaro tucked the now closed leather wallet into a slacks pocket while producing a small Moleskine notebook and a short pencil from the same pocket. He opened the notebook and had the pencil poised over the page. "Your name, sir?"

The doctor swallowed roughly. "Dr. Akash Patel."

"This is your official place of employment?" The younger man was looking from the doctor to the notebook and back again as he wrote. The doctor nodded silently.

"And you are registered as a resident here in Thailand at the Special Branch office in Surat Thani?" The doctor nodded again, although with some hesitation.

"Since you have an honest face and you are not a criminal suspect, I'm not going to have to check your police clearance paperwork, am I?" The doctor nodded again, a sick look starting to appear on his face.

Keitaro smiled thinly at the doctor, no warmth on his face. "So tell me about Mr. Seta's injuries."

The doctor began to speak after coughing a bit to clear his throat. "Mr. Seta has two gunshot wounds to the chest and one to the lower right leg. Thankfully, no major organs were damaged in the chest, and there were no serious fractures as a result of the leg wound. I was able to stop the bleeding of the chest wounds and put a temporary splint on the leg. Mr. Seta will require further surgery at a more comprehensive hospital than can be found here, but he should be able to make a full recovery with the proper treatment."

Keitaro had stopped writing and was staring at the doctor again, making the man visibly nervous. "I think you are mistaken, doctor. Those injuries were not a result of gunshots. They are a result of a very nasty motorcycle accident when Mr. Seta was thrown from his bike and into some rather spiky branches of a bush along the roadside."

The doctor opened his mouth to disagree, but then stopped and reconsidered. After a few moments of thought where both Keitaro and Gaz were staring at him, the doctor started to speak again. "Of course, how silly of me. I just assumed with the blood loss and broken bone as well as the through and through wound on the leg…"

Here Keitaro interrupted the doctor. "You know what they say about people who assume, doctor, they make an ASS out of U and ME." The capitalization could be heard in Keitaro's words. The doctor nodded silently at this rebuke but otherwise kept quiet. "Aren't you glad I was able to clarify this, doctor, otherwise you would be making incorrect records of this man's treatment, which could impact your employment here." The doctor paled slightly again but nodded again. "You are going to update those records to make sure they have the correct information, yes?" The doctor nodded much more enthusiastically at the last question.

"One more thing, doctor." Fear started to spread on the doctor's face again. "I believe there is a question of payment?" asked Keitaro.

The doctor cleared his throat again. "Ah, yes. With all the medical supplies factored in, the total cost of today's treatment is approximately 2500 U.S. dollars. Every day he stays beyond today will cost 200 U.S. dollars."

"Really?" Keitaro was writing again in his notebook but his eyes were now fixed on the suddenly sweating doctor.

"Well, since you did us a favor by clarifying the true nature of the injuries, I suppose we can reduce the cost to $2200." The nervous doctor looked from Keitaro to Gaz, a bead of sweat running from his temple down his face that had nothing to do with the tropical weather.

Keitaro looked down at his notebook and finished writing a moment later. Tucking the notebook and pencil away, he turned to the man beside him. "Mr. Gaz, go ahead and pay the good doctor."

Silently, Gaz pulled out a sheaf of hundred dollar bills and started counting them out. Once he got to twenty two, he separated them from the bundle and handed them to the doctor, who folded them and was about to tuck them into his lab coat pocket when Keitaro cleared his throat, causing him to freeze in place.

Reaching over, Keitaro plucked two hundred dollar bills from the doctor's hand and tucked then into his own shirt pocket. "Service fee," said the younger man said with a thin smile on his face. "Go ahead, Dr. Patel." The doctor nodded jerkily as he put the money in his pocket, then quickly wrote out a receipt on his own pocket notebook and handed it to the Briton. "Mr. Gaz is going to have Mr. Seta transported to the mainland by this evening at the latest, if he is cleared for travel?" The doctor nodded. "With that, I think we are all done here. If I have any more questions, I know where to find you." The doctor did not look encouraged at this statement. "Have a good day, Dr. Patel." Turning, the doctor not too steadily walked away, leaving the two men in front of the door.

Looking over at Keitaro, the older man could see some emotion come back to his face. The younger man's lips quirked up for a moment before Keitaro softly announced in Japanese again. "Time to see how Seta-sensei is doing." Pushing through the door, the young ronin entered the room, the older contractor staring after him for a moment before following behind him.

No matter what part of the world you where in, hospitals all tended to be the same… levels of technology notwithstanding. This Thai clinic did not have the beeping vital signs monitors that a Japanese hospital would have, nor did it have the blinding white walls and ugly linoleum that was a common feature there. However, this clinic did have the astringent smell of disinfectant and medicine as well as the bleached white bedclothes. The general feeling of weakness and the faint sense of despair was common to the boondocks though.

As Gaz stepped into the room, he could see Keitaro standing at the head of the bed, looking down at the man laying there. Noriyasu Seta was unconscious, his face slightly grimacing and sweat-beaded as a result of the high humidity heat common in Thailand. Picking up a cloth sitting on the nightstand next to the bed, Keitaro started dabbing at his sensei's face and wiping away the perspiration, the emotionless expression subtly changing to a faint one of sorrow.

"So we have agreed on the next step? We are calling Nikolai?" The soft volume of Keitaro's voice did not keep Gaz from starting slightly in response.

"Yeah, probably the best idea. We need to get Seta out of here as soon as possible. I was thinking of yanking him out of here anyway, plus we probably need shooters if we are going to Phuket." Gaz watched as Keitaro put down the cloth and put his fingers against Seta's wrist, apparently checking his pulse.

"Yes. Nikolai can fly in with his plane and get us back to the mainland in less than half the time of a boat trip. If he doesn't mind burning the fuel, we can drop Seta-sensei off at a medical clinic we can trust on the mainland, then Nikolai can take us straight to Phuket. We'll play it by ear from there." Keitaro watched as Gaz pulled out his mobile phone before speaking again. "Not to tell you what to do, sempai," Gaz snorted at Keitaro calling him his senior, "but you may want to try and get Nikolai to help us without us promising anything at first, offering the money next and my promised favors as a last resort. I really don't want to make promises that I will have to explain to my Granny if I can help it."

Gaz looked thoughtfully at Keitaro while tapping his fingers on his mobile phone, not dialing yet. "You know Ronin, I'm starting to get rather curious about you. In the last couple days you are acting more like a trained spook than I do, and I'm twenty years older and the black ops vet here."

Keitaro looked back at Gaz, a thin smile on his face. Only this time there was emotion in his expression, a small amount of humor. "We don't have the time to talk about it now, but I can tell you that a lot of this is family training. I'll probably be shaking and throwing up at a later time." Keitaro gestured toward the mobile phone. "Go ahead and make the call. Again, not to tell you what to do, but you may want to speak in Russian with Nikolai."

"You going to teach my granny how to suck eggs too, Keitaro?" Gaz asked jokingly, but continued without pausing for an answer. "Nikolai is going to be pretty pissed about this anyway. He was the one that brought Sarah down from Surat Thani, she had him wrapped around her little finger." Gaz started to dial numbers on the mobile.

"Sarah-chan could be pretty charming, when she wasn't such a gaki." Keitaro used the Japanese slang word for a bratty child. Seta would call Sarah that when he was exasperated due to the American girl's antics. Keitaro would use the term as well but only in his mind; using it to Sarah's face would have probably resulted in having *his* face ripped off.

Keitaro had absent-mindedly left his fingers on Seta's wrist after checking his pulse, which was why he almost jumped when Seta's hand suddenly grabbed his wrist in an almost crushing grip. His gaze snapped up to his mentor's pale face, where he saw the older man's eyes were open and fixed on his face with a feverish intensity.

"Keitaro-kun… what happened? I heard screaming, Sarah-chan was screaming and shooting, I ran out of the cave and there where men shouting and shooting at us... Sarah-chan, where's Sarah-chan!?" Seta's voice was rising, and his grip on Keitaro's wrist increased to the point where the young man had to increase the chi reinforcement in his arm to keep it from being injured.

Hesitantly but with no other choice, the two men began to explain what had happened, alternating as each man came to a point where they were directly involved. It took about five minutes, but finally the brief yet detailed explanation wound up with Keitaro's account of the information he had extracted from the teen pirate, although not in great detail on how he had extracted the intel. How he dealt with the teen afterwards was still apparent, even if it was unstated.

"…So we were just about to call Nikolai to come evacuate you from this island. I don't know how much we are going to have to promise or pay for him to do this, but as soon as we drop you off at a better hospital at Surat Thani we will then go to Phuket to pick up the trail again." Keitaro finished saying.

"No." Both Keitaro and Gaz were stunned at the wounded man's response. Seta's face had gotten paler during the short briefing, but his eyes were fever-bright, and his hand was still clamped on Keitaro's wrist. "We go straight to Phuket and you start chasing these bastards down. I've already lasted a day with these injuries, I can wait a while longer."

"Seta-sensei, you have chest wounds! You've lost gods knows how much blood, it's damn near a miracle that you're awake! You need major medical treatment immediately, we can't put it off!" Keitaro was shocked at Seta's statement, but not as much as when Seta yanked him down by the arm to where Keitaro almost crashed face first into him. Seta reached over with his free hand and smacked Keitaro across the face, knocking his dark glasses away in the process.

"Listen to me, Urashima." Seta spoke at a relatively low volume, but the growl in his voice would have caused a lesser man to cringe. "The only thing you will be concerned with doing is getting back my daughter. No matter what it takes, no matter who you have to go through, I want Sarah-chan back!" Seta was staring into Keitaro's blood-stained eyes without flinching. "My health is not even a secondary concern here, I will either live or die, but all I want you to do is to find my daughter! Promise me, whatever it takes!"

Keitaro had to swallow the lump in the throat in order to speak. "You know what that promise would mean, sensei."

"Promise me! On your honor!" Seta's voice had risen to almost a shout.

"I promise I will get Sarah-chan back." Keitaro's head bowed and his eyes closed, but he still spoke clearly. "On my honor, whatever it takes."

"And if you cannot get her back and you have a clear shot…" Seta's voice had dropped in volume but was still clear. "You will make sure she will not suffer anymore."

"Sensei!" Keitaro threw a horrified look at the other man.

"Promise me!" This time the words *were* shouted.

The two men stared at each other for what felt like eternity before finally whispered words broke the silence. "I swore an oath to Cynthia-chan when she was dying to protect Sarah-chan when I took her in, and I failed." Seta's voice cracked and tears welled up in his eyes. "Please, promise me."

Another eternity passed before the next words were spoken. "I promise I will not leave Sarah-chan to suffer." Keitaro's voice broke as he spoke the words. "On my honor."

The room was silent again; Keitaro was standing with his head bowed and eyes down again, Gaz staring at the two of them with wide eyes, and Seta's eyes were still fixed on his student. After a few moments Seta looked over toward the Briton. "Gaz, are you willing to be a part of this?"

"Yes, of course." Gaz almost sounded insulted at the question.

"Even if I make Keitaro-kun the lead in this?" This time both men stared at Seta.

"Why would he be the lead? No offense, but I have more experience in things like this." Gaz looked almost as shocked as Keitaro.

"Yes you do, but Keitaro-kun had two things going for him. He has the will to see this through, and he has his family's training." Seta was glancing between the two men.

"Family training?" This was the second time Gaz had heard that phrase, and he still did not know what it meant.

"Keitaro-kun can explain it to you later, but I have the utmost confidence in him. Short of you getting your old unit together, he is the best shot at pulling this off."

Gaz was brought up short at that declaration. Given that Seta knew that he had been a part of Task Force 141, what had been unofficially and jokingly known as a 'Tier Zero' counter-terror unit, both because they cherry-picked members from various English speaking Tier One groups (such as the British SAS, the Canadian JTF-1 and the American Delta Force and SEAL Team Six), and because they were a black ops group that did not officially exist. There were no finer hostage rescue operators on this planet, and Seta was essentially saying that Keitaro was, if not their peer, pretty damn close to it.

"So will you let Keitaro-kun be the lead in this? He's going need your advice, certainly, but he needs to be the lead." Seta was now focused on Gaz.

"Yes. He can be lead." Having been involved in special operations for more than twenty years, Gaz had learned to listen to his gut instincts. Looking at the youngest of all three men in the room, the Briton remembered what he had previously said about Keitaro Urashima reminding him of the various young officers he had served under. Even though they did not usually match their subordinates in technical skills, the good officers would listen to their sergeant's advice, give the necessary orders, and keep up with their men. From this moment forward, he would treat Keitaro the same way.

"Keitaro-kun, stand by to copy something down," Seta ordered. Once the ronin had produced his pocket notebook, the older man rattled off a string of numbers and letters which was quickly written down. Seta then gave another string of numbers and letters, only this was spoken in archaic Japanese that Gaz did not understand but Keitaro did and wrote down in that form. "That is the bank account number for the expedition funds. There's about two hundred grand left in the account, you now have access to it." Seta turned to look at Gaz. "Go and call Nikolai, tell him that I am calling in all my markers that I am holding for him so he can assist in this matter. I am willing to pay reasonable expenses but tell him that otherwise He. Owes. Me." Seta said with finality. Gaz nodded in acknowledgement before turning and leaving the room, dialing his mobile as he went.

"Keitaro-kun." Once the younger man turned toward him again Seta continued speaking. "I know that you've done well so far, but if you have to, you are going to have to release your seals and use the special mental technique."

His eyes widening, Keitaro asked, "Do you know what you're asking? You know the risks involved in that."

Seta sighed, suddenly looking like the tired wounded man that he was. "Keitaro-kun, I was there when Haruka-chan popped her seals too fast when we were attacked by grave robbers on an expedition when we were in Todai together. I saw what Haruka-chan did in that fight, and how it affected her afterwards. It's the reason she is emotionally blunted now. She can feel emotions, she just can't express them very well. That's why I act like such a jackass around her, it's the only thing that will cause her to smile a little. Her emotional problems and my guilt about them is what screwed up our relationship. That and the fact that Granny Hina kicked my ass up and down the Hinata-sou hill in the guise of training afterwards, saying that I needed to be able to protect Haruka-chan better if I was going to hang around her. I wouldn't ask if there was another way. It may already be too late, Keitaro-kun, that is why I asked you to make that second promise. You're about to go feet-first into the worst that humanity has to offer, chances are that you will need the special technique in order to handle it."

The ronin nodded slowly. "I understand."

"I hope you will be as understanding once this is all said and done. Short of having your Granny here, you are the only person I can trust with this. There might be people with more experience," Seta jerked his head toward the door, referring to Gaz, "but you have both the skills and the determination to see this through."

"Hai, sensei." The two men fell into silence, listening to the murmurs of Gaz's conversation for about five minutes before the British merc reentered the room.

"I got Nikolai to agree to assist us." Gaz said without preamble. "He's going to be here by dusk and he'll fly us all out ASAP. He's going to bring his medic with supplies along and have him check you out during the trip. Once we're at Phuket we'll go after the Russian, if Seta needs more medical treatment he knows some trustworthy people there. He can only bring one shooter in addition to the medic, and Nik can assist if need be. All told, this is going to cost us twenty grand, with ten grand up front. Anything after that will be negotiated at that point, but Nikolai has promised to take us to Bangkok if we go our separate ways after Phuket."

"Good enough for now. Keitaro-kun, go to the bank and set up a wire transfer for fifty thousand dollars. Get ten thousand in cash and the rest of it in gold coin. The bank will charge ten percent for rush service, but that can't be helped. You don't want to be carrying large wads of cash out there." Reaching down to the dark glasses that were still sitting on the bed Seta handed them back to Keitaro, who held them in his hand with some uncertainly. "Once you leave this room keep doing your cop routine, that will keep the street thugs off you, and most cops won't mess with Special Branch. By the way, how did you come up with that idea? Gaz said that the doctor almost crapped himself when you identified yourself that way."

"When Gaz and I were talking on the island about that dirty cop that was on the raid, I started thinking how useful it would be to have someone like that assisting us. I still have the pistol I recovered from him," Keitaro pulled up the hem of the guayabera shirt he was wearing to show the nickel slide Glock tucked in his waistband, "and the photo on the ID is close enough to my appearance that it will pass as long as it is not examined too closely. So I took back the ID thinking that we could use it to frighten off the local nitwits. The only downside was that it would not necessarily work on the police themselves, but then I remembered when we went to the Special Branch office in Surat Thani to register for our stay here in Thailand. We had to ask a traffic cop for directions and he was almost as frightened of the SB as the civilians were. The ID has both Thai and English script on it, so I was able to read the name and rank. Thankfully it does not have a location or assignment block on the ID, so as long as I do the emotionless act, it should probably do. The only real problem is if I run into a senior officer or an actual SB agent, in which case…" Here Keitaro shrugged. "I'll play it by ear."

"You know how bad it will go if the Royal Thai Police or, god forbid, the SB themselves, find you using that ID? Especially since the actual holder is…" Although speaking in Japanese, Gaz didn't want to say that they had killed a police officer, even if it was a corrupt one.

"Better not get caught then." Keitaro did not look too worried, but his expression was a little frayed along the edges.

"How are you going to talk to people though? You don't speak Thai." Seta asked the next question.

"I can speak a fair bit." Keitaro said in Thai. "I just talk slow while I stare at them." He then switched to Japanese again. "Learned to speak some Thai while doing the supply runs. And acting like Clint Eastwood when talking to someone tends to freak them out. I ready did luck out when that doctor came out speaking English, it gave me the excuse not to use Thai."

"Just… be careful, Keitaro-kun. You're playing with fire there." Seta gestured toward Keitaro's glasses. "Get going, then. You're burning daylight." The last sentence was said in English, with an affected Western drawl, producing slight smiles from the other two men.

"That's more John Wayne than Clint Eastwood, sensei." The smile dropped off Keitaro's face as he put on the dark glasses again.

Just as the ronin was about to leave, Seta spoke again. "I'm sorry I hit you like that, Keitaro-kun."

The young man turned slightly and spoke. "It's not a problem, Seta-sensei." With that the Urashima turned and walked out of the room.

A/N: An exposition chapter again. It had its melodramatic moments, but this is an emotional time for all of them, especially since they are preparing for the next stage of tracking down Sarah.

I originally meant to have a longer update (I try to have three part/segment chapters) but just this clinic segment ran to 5K words, and if I had done the Phuket and Yuri segments I had planned, I would have probably gone over 10K words and been delayed another week or so. I do hope you guys don't mind what I did post today. *smile*

Some news - after I finish the aforementioned Phuket and Yuri chapter, I am planning to jump back to the Tokyo/Hinata-sou arc (the rescue and Roanapur chapters will now be referred to as the Chasing Sarah/Roanapur arc). There have been some complaints about how OOC Keitaro has been in the Chasing Sarah arc, and I freely admit to it. But then again, if you are reading Contract Labor, it's not because you want to read about canon!Keitaro, the Amazing Walking Talking Doormat. *grin*

So… things to look forward to in the Hinata-sou arc… Mutsumi, fanservice (some would argue they are the same *g*), Sarah and her integration into the Japanese school system (think Asuka from Evangelion, only with slightly less bloodshed), more omakes (humorous and otherwise), and another Motoko interlude. I am considering another lemon, but those suckers are hard work, even more so than just regular writing, so I may just sprinkle some lime throughout the chapters.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - for me writing is hard work. It doesn't help that I am not that good a typist, so there are corrections aplenty as I write. I am in awe of the people who can crank out 50K word updates in the same amount of as me doing a paltry 6 to 7K update. Oh well, some people can play sports professionally, and some people can write at a professional level and speed. That being said, I greatly appreciate the positive reviews I get such as the one from Jebus (that one almost made me blush *g*). I'm a fair to middlin' writer that has some decent ideas, I'm lucky to have people that think that combines to make a good story. I hesitate to say that is a standout story, but if some people like the story that much, who am I to argue? *grin*

To the people that state that they listen to and/or hear certain music when reading my story; I'm glad to hear that. I tend to do the same as I visualize certain scenes of the story (I guess it comes from watching too many movies and Anime Music Videos - it's not a great scene unless you have the appropriate background music). So for the people interested in that sort of thing, here is a partial list of Contract Labor appropriate music. A more detailed list can be released if requested. Note: some of these songs don't have lyrics that match up with the scene, but hey it the beat and the melody that count. *grin* All of these can be found on YouTube, just search under the song name and artist.

Battle Music -

Seizure of Power - Marilyn Manson (instrumental)

One Step Closer - Linkin Park

Given Up - Linkin Park

Stinkfist - Tool

46 & 2 - Tool

Doom3 Theme - Tweaker

Emotional/Background Music -

Rock Superstar - Cypress Hill

Sadness and Sorrow - Naruto Soundtrack

Despair - Naruto Soundtrack

Vengeance - Zack Hemsey (Both with lyrics and instrumental. Will be a part of the next chapter.)

As of 01Apr15 0330 PDT this story has 210K words, 553K Views, 637 Reviews, 59 C2 Listings, 1073 Favorites and 965 Alerts. Most unusual place reading my story this month is the Maldives. Runner up is the People's Republic of China (really!?).

Go check out the TVTropes page for Contract Labor! Be advised, some of the spoilers are from upcoming chapters.

Thanks again to AZ MII and PCH for their mad beta (and snarking!) skillz.

Happy April Fools Day, everyone. *peace sign*