Chapter 52

V 1.0

A/N 1: I have not done this in a while, so here is a list of things that do not belong to me: Love Hina, Black Lagoon, Naruto, You're Under Arrest, Evangelion, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Full Metal Panic, and Star Wars. I am just a poor fan fic writer that gets paid only with the most intangible of things: feedback.

Tsujimoto/Kobayakawa Residence
Koto City, Tokyo, Japan
Late January
Early evening
Five months after story start

There were many things you could call Natsumi Tsujimoto – exuberant, enthusiastic, happy-go-lucky, sometimes even hyperactive. Much of this had to do with her chi usage in her physical activities, as she was at least twice as strong and had twice as much endurance as a regular person, which was one of the reasons she had been allowed to join the Tokyo Police Department's version of SWAT; it was difficult to refuse entry to an officer when she could literally outrun and out-carry almost every other officer on the current operational team. In fact, if it was not for the fact that she was female, Natsumi would have been snapped up by the spooks at the PSIA or by the spec war operators at JGSDF's Special Forces Group, who were always on the lookout for chi users, but the upper echelons could not get past her gender.

However, the one thing that could be said about Natsumi was that she was not much of a deep thinker. It was not that she was unintelligent or had bad judgment, but the brown haired cop tended to react on instinct and engrained training rather than spending time thinking things through. Not that this was a bad thing when in the middle of a critical incident, but it tended to give other people pause. All that being said, Natsumi was currently sitting at the dining table in their apartment, staring at the slowly cooling sake in the mug in front of her.

Miyuki Kobayakawa was sitting in her beanbag chair, but for once she did not have her headphones on listening to music. Watching her partner think deeply was not an interesting pastime, but whatever conclusions she came to usually were. In fact, the last time Natsumi had been like this had been when she decided that they should both take Keitaro as a lover over a year ago. It was not really something that she regretted now although it had hit some rough patches. But to see Natsumi frowning as she stared at her sake was starting to get her concerned, so she finally spoke up.

"Natsumi-chan." Seeing the brunette girl turn her head toward her, the black-haired girl continued. "What are you thinking about? It's not like you to think so much on something."

The other girl snorted softly. "Or even think at all, right Yuki-chan?" Natsumi was well aware of her tendencies but she did not give her girlfriend a chance to respond before continuing. "It's about Mutsumi-chan. That girl makes me nervous."

"Nervous how?" The Okinawan girl was probably the least threatening person she had ever met with her airhead attitude. The only way that she could be considered a threat was in attracting the attention of men (and some women) except for her innocent persona. "You don't think she is trying to steal Keitaro-kun away, do you?"

"Not deliberately, no." Natsumi picked up her mug and sipped at it. "I'm more concerned about their prior relationship."

"Prior relationship?" Miyuki repeated. "They only met a couple of weeks ago at Todai."

"Yeah, Keitaro-kun said that, and I believe him. But remember when he went to the washroom during our lunch and we were talking to Mutsumi-chan about her going to Todai, how she missed getting in last time?" The black-haired girl nodded; she doubted she would have been so calm about the mishap had it occurred to her. "She said that it was not her destiny to enter Todai at that point, when the right time came it would happen."

"What are you getting at, Nats-chan?" Miyuki had thought it a little strange to think that way, but given how Mutsumi acted it was not much of a surprise.

"It's almost as though something was guiding them to get together in the same school year. Keitaro-kun wasn't able to join this year's class, and suddenly the top scorer for that year messes up on her test?" Natsumi gestured with her mug before taking another drink from it, draining it.

"Natsumi-chan, that doesn't make sense. You're saying that Mutsumi-chan deliberately tanked the test to make sure that she would be with Keitaro-kun? There are easier ways to hook up with someone, and Kei-kun wasn't involved with anyone at that time. All she had to do was walk up to him and give him the Marshmallow Hell attack and she probably would have gotten him." One of the stories Mutsumi had told them at lunch was about meeting Gidget-chan at the Hinata-sou and how she had initially greeted her.

"I know, I know. That is what is driving me nuts here. It's like she wants to be with him but doesn't want to be with him, at least in a romantic relationship. Like you said, if she had known him at that time she had a clean shot at him." Natsumi stood up and walked over to the stove to pour more warm sake from the bottle before going back to her seat. "The only thing worse would be if she was the Promise Girl."

Miyuki nodded in agreement. Keitaro had told them about his promise to a little girl when he was a child himself. Not that he could remember her face or her name, but that he intended to keep the promise he made regardless. If the busty beautiful Okinawan girl turned out to be the girl in question…they would not have a chance against her. "You're not thinking that Mutsumi-chan is the Promise Girl, are you?" asked Miyuki.

"Gods, I hope not. We would be dead in the water in that case." One thing they both admired about Keitaro was his sense of honor; they knew that if it was not for the fact that the two girls wanted to be with him and each other he would not have gotten involved with them instead of waiting for his childhood friend. Keitaro was not the cheating type, and it had been at their insistence that they told him that he was not beholden to just them before he had left on his trip to Thailand. That being said, he had not told them that he had been with anyone during that time and they were not about to ask. The closest they came to knowing anything was when his physical health status had come up, and the young man had simply answered that he had been screened for all disease types both on the American ship he had wound up on and once he had gotten back to Japan, and come up clean both times.

"There is one thing that does concern me about Keitaro-kun." Miyuki stated. "He looks like he had not been getting enough sleep." Natsumi nodded in agreement; compared to how he looked before he left for Thailand, the young ronin appeared visibly worn and tired.

"Maybe because he has more to do now? He is working for Seta-kun, running the Inn, and studying for the entrance exam. Back then all he did was work for Seta-kun," Natsumi replied. "Keitaro-kun really does need some time off. He hasn't even spent time with us!" The last time the trio was able to spend time together was when they snuck off to a love hotel around the time of the new year. Their luncheon with Mutsumi had interrupted their plans to haul their erstwhile lover to a love hotel again.

"And how are we going to do that? Go up to Kanako-san and say, 'We want to drag off your brother to have sex with us for at least a full day, can you cover for him?" Miyuki asked rhetorically. The two girls knew that the Urashima sister at best merely tolerated them, and would not go out of her way to help them have alone time with her beloved big brother.

"We could go to Haruka-san and ask for her help? She might go for it. Or we can ask Seta-kun to let us take Keitaro-kun out for training, but not tell him what kind." Natsumi waggled her eyebrows at Miyuki, who at least appeared to consider it.

"It's not a bad idea. Let's talk to Haruka-san first, and see what Keitaro-kun's schedule is like. I don't want to ask Seta-kun for that kind of favor if I can help it, he will probably see right through it." Noriyasu Seta was many things, but dumb was not one of them.

"Well, here's to our next night of steaming hot sex with our stud Keitaro-kun!" Natsumi raised her mug and in one shot drained the contents.

Hinata Inn Dormitory
Hinata City, Kanagawa Prefecture
Metro Tokyo, Japan
late January, mid morning

"In Emotion, we find Peace;
In Ignorance, we find Knowledge;
In Passion, we find Serenity;
In Chaos, we find Harmony;
In the Darkness, we are the Light."

"You're quoting the freaking Jedi Code at me?" Sarah asked incredulously. She was sitting cross-legged on the grass behind the Hinata-sou, with Keitaro sitting in the seiza position in front of her. That morning the young ronin had taken her aside after breakfast to tell her that he was starting his lessons. When the young blonde asked if she needed to change from her sleepwear sweats to those more appropriate to physical activity, he had shook his head and said that the first lesson would consist of sitting and talking. "Aren't you afraid George Lucas is going to sue your butts?"

"Granny Hina already settled that issue with Lucas-san." Keitaro said offhandedly. As Sarah's mind boggled at that statement he continued talking. "Just because the Code was used in fiction does not make it any less true. In fact, quite a few people around the world now identify as Jedi when asked what religion they practice. What is important is that the premise itself is true, that in a world of chaos and disorder one can find peace and serenity, and more importantly clear their minds of fear and distractions to defend what they hold dear."

"So I'm not going to wind up becoming a Jedi Knight, am I?" Even as she spoke, in her mind's eye Sarah could see herself in the brown and white robes that Obi-Wan Kenobi wore in the movies, with Keitaro dressed like Qui-Gon Jinn behind her, both of them wielding lightsabers…which actually was not a bad look for them. "I would not mind the lightsaber training though."

Keitaro chuckled. "You and me both, Sarah-kun. The closest we can come to that is kendo, which I will familiarize you with later on. Right now I am just going to talk to you about the Code and what it means. I'm actually going to be a little easier on you than what I had to go through in my training, because you are older than I was when I first started training, and I'm not much for the traditional form of training." Seeing Sarah raise an eyebrow he explained. "Normally you would be told to memorize the Code and figure it out on your own, but I'm going to explain it. My personal theory is that the traditional teachers just wanted to pass on the way they had to learn, no matter how painful it would be. I'm not into making people suffer just because that is the way it was always done, the training is going to be hard enough."

"First is 'In Emotion, we find Peace." People are always going to feel emotions, there is no good ways around it. What you need to learn to do is acknowledge your feelings, bring them under your control, use them to give you the drive and desire to protect yourself and those you care about.

"Second is 'In Ignorance, we find Knowledge.' No one ever knows everything, no matter how old they are or how much they have experienced. Whoever thinks they know everything is a fool; they become arrogant and complacent, and that is usually when someone or something unseen comes and knocks them off their pedestal. Every day our goal is to learn something new, about ourselves, about others, about life itself. The day you are no longer able to learn is the day they wrap the burial shroud around you.

"Third is 'In Passion, we find Serenity'. Passion is what drives us, what makes us want to do more, to achieve more, to see more. But there is a difference between wanting more, and wanting more than is reasonable. Those people think that if they have more and more and more of anything, like possessions, or money, or power, it will make them happy. It won't, because you will never get enough to fill the hole in the middle of your soul and you will hurt people doing it; in the end you cannot take it with you to the next life.

"Fourth is 'In Chaos, we find Harmony'. Pure Order not possible, it goes against the natural state of the universe, but pure Chaos is not possible either. Life is like a pendulum that goes between the two states, and no matter how you want the ball to stay at one end or the other, it cannot be held there for long. Staying in the middle does not last, because with no Chaos there is no growth and everything stagnates. Trying to force Order in the world will not succeed for long, not will causing Chaos last for long either because eventually there will be nothing left to disrupt, all will became a massive maelstrom that no one will survive. But what we can do is make our own little piece of the world peaceful, and that starts with you.

"Last is 'In the Darkness, we are the Light'. Just as there is Chaos and Order in the world, there is Good and Evil. Contrary to what some believe, you cannot have one without the other. To protect yourself and those you care about against Evil, you have to travel through the Darkness to fight against it, as refusing to fight will not solve the problem. But while you should not be aggressive or attack without provocation, once you do have to fight you should end the fight as decisively and as quickly as possible to prevent further harm. If this means harming, crippling, or even ending the life of the aggressors, so be it. You should not be the one to start trouble, but once you are involved, you should certainly finish it.

"Beyond the Code itself there are three words that the Urashima family consider important beyond anything else; family, honor, duty. When it comes down to it, your family is the most important thing you are protecting. Your honor is what helps guide your behaviors and conduct with other people. Duty is the moral obligations you have to something greater than yourself. The Urashima follow those three concepts in that order, because your duty can demand that you do something dishonorable, and your honor can require that you act against your family, something that is only done in the gravest extreme."

Keitaro stopped talking and took a drink of water from the bottle sitting on the grass beside him before looking back at the raptly attentive girl before him. "There is one last thing you need to decide, Sarah-san." The blonde stiffened at the use of the formal honorific. "Should you decide to walk this path into the Darkness, I will be your guide, your sensei. That means I am responsible for teaching you what you need to learn, and how you use it. That means that if you veer off the path into the true darkness, into Evil, I am the one that has to deal with you. No matter what it takes, if you use what I teach you to harm others without cause or reason, I will decide what has to be done about you and carry it out. If that means binding your chi, I will do so. If that means I have to deal with you in a permanent fashion, I will do so as well. Do you understand what I am saying, Sarah-san?" Dark brown eyes behind glasses bored into blue eyes under blonde hair.

Sarah swallowed the lump in her throat as she nodded her head. The message was clear: If you go Sith on me, I will kill you if necessary.

"Then let me ask you one final time, Sarah McDougal-san; do you wish for me to teach you the ways of Urashima-ryu, to guide you on the dark rocky path before you, to do your best even when exhausted or in pain, to continue even when you want to give up?" Keitaro asked, his demeanor absolutely serious.

"I do, Keitaro-sensei." Sarah replied, uncomfortably aware how close this was to a wedding vow.

"Good, Sarah-kun." Keitaro smiled at her, and a figurative weight on her shoulders seemed to dissolve. "While we are training you should use the sensei title, but otherwise you don't have to. That is one piece of tradition I do agree with."

"Yes, sensei." Sarah smiled back at her new instructor.

"The first thing we are going to do is for you to learn to meditate, and to find your center. Once you have the basics down, you are going to stretch and starting tomorrow we are do what is going to be your daily basic exercise until you are fully recovered; going down and up the stairs in front of the Inn. You are also going to memorize the Code by tomorrow, and you will recite it at the beginning and the end of every session of training; if you are incorrect when you do so you will do extra training in the form of sit ups to help you memorize it. Do you understand, Sarah-kun?" Keitaro smiled thinly at his student.

Too late to back out now, Sarah-kun. The blonde thought to herself. "Hai, sensei." She said, trying to smile bravely.

Keitaro's smile became a full one. "Remember, Sarah-kun, you will not be alone. Not anymore. You are part of our family now. The Urashima take care of their own."

Sarah's smile became much more genuine. "Thank you, sensei."

Audio/Visual Room
Kanazawa High School
Hinata City, Kanagawa Prefecture
Metro Tokyo, Japan
late January, early afternoon

Kensuke Aida was starting to get nervous…more nervous than usual, at least. A believer in the phrase 'it isn't work if you enjoy it', the second year student applied it to his money-making ventures. A photography otaku and connoisseur of pictures of pretty girls, it did not take him long to realize that his fellow students would pay hard cash for risqué photos of their female classmates. He did not have much to work with at first; an early model digital camera that was about the size of a brick. But after he was able to figure out a way to take pictures with a remote cable switch, he was able to rig the camera up to be concealed in a book bag, the lens against a concealed opening that was angled up and to the side, the shutter trigger concealed in the bag's handle. Once he was able to get the set-up to work properly and he started to be able to get up-skirt pictures of some of the hottest girls in the school by brushing the bag against them in the hallways, the money started pouring in. Classmates that previously would be slamming him against the lockers or head-down into trash cans were suddenly giving him hard yen for something he would have done for himself anyway.

Not that he was going to refuse the money; the income from this business was used to buy better cameras and equipment, plus come up with a copy protection of sorts to prevent unauthorized copying of his merchandise. Instead of risking printing out hard copies of the photos or texting the photos phone to phone, Kensuke would sell the photos on MicroSD chips with rudimentary DRM and password protection; the images could not be copied from the chip nor sent via text or Bluetooth. This made some of his customers unhappy, as they were used to copying and stealing any image they could find on the internet, but the otaku was not about to undercut himself by having customers give copies of his product to their friends without paying.

Kensuke had started his business in the first year of high school, and by the time the year had ended he was making enough money to be able to buy whatever video, computer and eroge games he wanted, as well as collectables for the various ecchi and hentai anime and manga he followed. This was after he was able to upgrade his equipment from the old camera and cable trigger release to miniaturized cameras with zoom lens and remote controls. The otaku had pride in his work; no cell phone snapshots for him! His business had gotten to the point where he could take special orders from customers for images of certain girls, and as Shakespeare once said, therein lies the rub.

Sarah McDougal had hit the school scene like a bomb, with about as much damage. In a school where more than ninety percent of the girls were petite brunettes, the blonde haired blue eyed American stood out like a lighthouse on a dark night. To add to matters the girl was more developed than almost every other girl at the school except Aki Wakirihara, who was pretty much the top school idol in spite of her age. It had taken some serious work to get pictures of Aki, and it was probably the most dangerous job he had done to boot. Her casual demeanor concealed a wary eye for people getting too close to her, and she was not afraid to get physical with anyone who crowded her. There were two or three upperclassmen that tried to swoop in on the fresh meat when the new freshman arrived at Kanazawa High; it did not take long for them to realize that when she said no, she meant it. Two older students that tried to force their way regardless had a sudden reduction in ardor after a throat strike and a kick to the balls. The last reaction certainly made an impression; she had pushed the boy away and when he came back at her Aki had wound up and gave him a full power soccer kick to the nuts. The boy had to be dragged to the infirmary by his friends while curled in a ball, and still spoke an octave higher than before.

The blonde girl had not been at school a week before Kensuke started getting requests for pictures, and while he was able to get some photos from afar he was not able to get the hentai photos that made him the most money. It was not for lack of trying; he had tried two or three times to use his tried and true hidden camera in a bag, but the American was almost always walking with her close friend Nyamo Namo on one side and the wall or lockers on the other. It did not help that some of the rougher students would try and grope her or flip up her skirt while she was walking. Kensuke had seen Sarah grab one boy by the wrist and shoulder and throw him face first into the lockers, which certainly made an impression on him before he slid to the ground, a bloody snotty mess.

Given the demand for the pictures, which had increased when she started hanging out with Aki, Kensuke had to use outside help to get the images, although it did not involve Toji Suzuhara, his erstwhile friend and bodyguard. Toji was the stereotypical jock, interested mostly in sports and video games, and surprisingly not so much in girls. Kensuke did not know if it was because his childhood friend had not yet outgrown his 'girls are gross!' stage or maybe not even interested in girls at all, but the taller and larger boy was good to keep away the students that felt that they could take Kensuke's merchandise without paying, or even stealing his money and equipment. It had only taken one incident where Toji had blown a number of teeth out of one would-be thief's mouth with one punch for word to get around. A few yen and some meals to keep Toji on his side made this a wise investment.

The help that Kensuke had to use was one that most people would not expect; female classmates. The otaku was well aware that most of the plainer and less physically attractive girls were jealous of their prettier classmates, and it had only taken some quick talking and some cash up front to get some girls to help out in his business. Kensuke did not use them in anything too complicated or risky, but they were very useful in areas that he could not access, like the girls locker room. In fact, that was the way that he had gotten images of Aki in her underwear, which were his best selling images to date. But just as he was try to get pictures of Sarah the girl had been injured in a track race and had been out for a week, barely returning to school this week. As it was she was still on injured status where she did not have take part in strenuous exercise, but she was still expected to suit up in her PE clothing, which was he was hoping for.

"Ken-chan, she just came in, get ready." Miki Sato was one of the girls that worked for him, but was the only one he did not have to pay in cash. In fact, the overweight girl demanded to be paid in sex, which had shocked Kensuke when he first heard it. He knew he was no prime catch with his thick glasses, plain looks, and skinny body, but he was not going to say no to a girl asking for sex. Miki probably would be close to attractive if it was not for the fact that she was fifteen kilos overweight and wore her hair in unstylish braids with the rest of her hair close to her scalp. Their first time had almost been a disaster, since her personal grooming and cleanliness were nowhere near acceptable to the boy who's standards had been shaped by internet porn. However, the pair had been in a love hotel and there were toiletries available to help clean her up to the point where it was not a major problem. Even so, Kensuke had to almost force himself to have sex with the girl by squinting his eyes shut and pretending she was someone else. After that she knew what he wanted, both in physical appearance and acts that they would perform on each other; it did not take her long to realize that her 'Ken-chan' would be much more enthusiastic if she was cleaned up to his standards, and she was more than willing to return the favor after he was done with her. In fact, their relationship had moved up to the sexfriends level but she was still willing to help him out against the 'stuck-up bitches' as she called them.

"OK Miki-chan, get ready to place the bag." Kensuke said into his Bluetooth mike. Given the complexity of this job, the otaku was doing a live mission control from the A/V room. Knowing how wary Sarah was of people watching her, he had to give guidance to his accomplice to make sure everything went well. A girl holding up a mobile phone would attract attention; a girl putting a gym bag on the bench behind her and angling it just so would not. Miki had a Bluetooth earbud connected to her mobile phone; some careful adjusting made it capable of near subvocal voice pick-up. The bag contained a digital camera with a concealed lens opening that would stream the video to a WiFi transmitter and then the laptop in front of him. "Activating camera." With a few key clicks, the PiP window on his laptop screen turned on, showing a view of the locker room, although not at the angle desired. "Turn the bag a couple centimeters to the left." At his direction the view shifted slightly until the main target was visible. "OK, put it down right there." The view jostled a bit before going steady, showing the blonde American girl opening the locker she normally used in the corner and placing her school bag inside.

"Ken-chan, I had to turn away, her little friend was looking right toward me." Miki whispered. Kensuke did not blame her; for someone that was shorter and slighter than he was Nyamo was rather intimidating. Some of the other students jokingly called her "McDougal's Shadow" or "Maehara's Dark Side", and it fit perfectly. The dark complexioned girl was now visible in front of the blonde and had stripped down to her white bra and panties before putting on her shorts, t-shirt and sweatshirt.

Just as the otaku made a mental note to make a separate image pack of the islander girl, he noticed something strange. Sarah had not started undressing; instead she had pulled out what looked to be a computer tablet from her school bag and was frowning and tapping at it. The blonde girl started to turn slowly away from her locker toward the camera, her eyes focused on the tablet. When Sarah was squarely in view, Kensuke quickly noticed two things; the back of the tablet had the MolMol three eyes insignia on it, and a pair of blue eyes were no longer focused on the tablet but looking right at the camera.

Kensuke barely had enough time to whisper oh shit before all hell broke loose.

Girls Locker Room
Kanazawa High School

Sarah had not been too sure that this plan would work, but short of taking more extreme measures it seemed doable.

The blonde girl had not spent all her time out of school studying or trudging down and up the stairs of the Hinata Inn (she was really starting to hate those stairs). Some of that time had been spent thinking about the illicit picture taking that was occurring at school, and how it could be prevented.

After some thought Sarah had decided that she really did not have to figure out motives or opportunity for the acts taking place. She had also pretty much figured out how it was occurring; someone was using concealed digital cameras since no one would be brazen enough to hold a camcorder or a mobile phone out in the open. After getting that far, Sarah decided to consult with the resident mad scientist to see what she thought.

Kaolla Su was full of all sorts of useful information regarding electronics. The blonde islander girl told her there were two ways for someone to take illicit photos using digital cameras; either through a standalone camera that stored images on site on an accessible card, or through a camera that broadcast it's data through WiFi or Bluetooth. It was very unlikely that someone would set up a hardwired camera, as it would be difficult to install undetected, risky in collecting its data, and locked into its location. A mobile camera was safer, easier to place and use, and could be walked away from if it was burned. When Sarah asked if the wireless data could be tracked back to the receiver Su merely grinned; when she ask if they could send back a little present that way the grin became positively evil.

Having walked into the locker room Sarah had put her school bag inside of her usual locker but left the tablet Su had given her on the top so it was easy to access. The blonde was about to start undressing when the wristband she was wearing started to vibrate. Looking like a fitness wristband made out of polymer, it had in fact been reprogrammed to act as a remote alarm device to let her know that there was an active data signal that matched the profile for a live streaming camera feed.

Reaching in and grabbing the tablet, Sarah unlocked it and went to the app that Su had set up to detect the camera signal. When the American blonde asked if her tablet computer could intercept the signal the islander blonde had merely laughed. After a few taps of the buttons on the screen, the signal was cracked and traced; it was coming from a mobile transmitter within five meters of her location. The tracer app could give both signal strength and direction, as well as show the image that was being streamed. Since five meters covered the interior of the locker room and almost everyone was to one side of her anyway, Sarah activated the camera feed to see where the image was coming from.

Upon seeing her image on her tablet screen, Sarah started to slowly turn to the right, seeing her image turn as well. Once her body was square to the image the blonde looked up from the tablet; two meters in front of her was a gym bag sitting alone on top of a bench, one end pointed right at her. There were two or three girls dressing up in gym clothes near were the bag was sitting, none of them facing her.

Sarah had thought of a couple ways to deal with this if she discovered someone taking pictures or video of her. One was to simply jam the signal. In fact the tablet and wristband could jam any mobile phone or WiFi signal within ten meters of her, but that would be both illegal and insufficient; it would not prevent someone from taking pictures either outside that radius or taking pictures with a local storage card digital camera. Another way was to send a feedback signal that would disrupt and probably damage the camera that broadcasting the signal, but it had the same problem as the first solution.

The third way to deal with the situation was the most drastic; using the live feed signal, Su's MolMolTech tablet would insert a computer worm into the data stream, which would allow access of the targeted computer by Su's supercomputer-level system at the Hinata-sou via WiFi. This would not only help them identify the person or person taking the photos and video, it would allow them to hijack the receiving computer and do what they wanted to it.

Seeing that the tablet already had jacked into the data stream, Sarah was able to bring up what had been recorded on the camcorder internal memory chip. Going back to the beginning of the recording, the blonde girl watched for a few moments as her friend undressed on the screen before she finally hit stop and brought up the command and control program on the tablet.

Seeing the three green buttons come up on screen, marked 'Jam', 'Feedback', and 'Takeover', Sarah gave a freezing cold look at the bag before her finger came down on one of the buttons.

"No no no no no!" Kensuke was frantically typing on the keyboard, trying his best to stop the attack and failing miserably.

Once the cold eyed blond had poked at the tablet screen, a loud squeal sounded in in both Kensuke's Bluetooth earpiece and his laptop's speakers. Instantly ripping the earpiece off, it still took the otaku a few moments to dump the laptop volume to zero, and rub his ear, which explained why it took him some time to realize what was happening; the files on his laptop were being copied.

After struggling for a moment to turn off the WiFi connection, Kensuke saw to his horror that the download was still continuing; the WiFi controls were being locked out as well the power control software. Just as the otaku was about to flip the laptop over to yank the battery and shut down the laptop that way, the download stopped.

Kensuke was still staring at the now blank screen when a chattering laugh sounded from the speakers. Twitching, the otaku watched as a cute animated monkey appeared on screen, it's three eyes formed into the MolMol symbol everyone at school was familiar with. The monkey laughed again while shaking his finger at him, before a message in Japanese hiragana appeared in a speech bubble.

"You have been a very bad boy. I'm taking your toys away since you can't play nice with others. If you keep being a bad boy, the grown-ups will have to be told." Kensuke stopped breathing; while his activities were not felony-level illegal, it was enough to get him expelled and prevent him from attending any good school or university, condemning him to a low class life. The message faded after a few moments and a new one appeared.

"You are going to have one chance to say you are sorry to those you hurt. Make the most of it." The monkey and message slowly faded away, then the green alphanumeric 'raindrops on glass' screen effect from the Matrix films appeared on screen. When Kensuke tapped on his mouse pad to see what happened, a dialogue box appeared with the fateful words 'Enter decrypt key'.

Kensuke slumped back in his chair as the full horror of what happen made itself known to him. The program had encrypted the contents of his laptop and would not decrypt without the key, something that he did not have. Not only did the phantom hacker now have partial to full copies of the contents on his laptop, there was no way to tell what they were able to access, like his image and financial files. He had full back-ups on separate portable hard drives, but the contents of his laptop was enough to get him into serious trouble regardless. Any thought of going after the girl most famous for the MolMol emblem was immediately thrown out; not only was Kaolla Su connected to a very powerful family that could made any talk of punishment for her explosive experiments at school disappear, the girl had a habit of doing jumping head kicks to anyone she found annoying or amusing; it was hard to tell which.

A sudden chattering laugh suddenly came from his mobile phone, causing him to start badly. Looking at the screen, there was a text message from a restricted number caller: we are watching you. With a shudder, Kensuke threw his phone away and dropped his head onto his arms on the table in front of him, trying not to sob.

Miki was looking down and rubbing her ear, her hearing still ringing from the loud squeal that came from the Bluetooth earbud, when she noticed that someone was standing in front of her. Looking up, her heart sank when she saw it was Sarah McDougal and Nyamo Namo. Both girls were wearing their gym clothes, and while Nyamo was frowning, Sarah was actually looking angry. Her blue eyes locked into her own for a long moment before the blonde finally spoke.

"We're going to talk after school. Don't make me come look for you." Turning, the blonde girl left the locker room, her shadow by her side, a clenching feeling forming in the Japanese girl's stomach.

A/N 2: Ah, what a week end. Four days of trudging through AnimeExpo, picking up various things, looking at all the cosplay, the scantily clad girls, the scantily clad cosplay girls, and so on. I guess I'm going to have to live on cup ramen until my next paycheck.

I managed to get this chapter out so fast because of two reasons: one, I am on vacation, and two, I read an article about a meeting between Steven King and George R.R. Martin. In it, King, who is famous for cranking out his books, was asked by GRRM, who is famous for not cranking out the next book in the A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones series, how he writes so much. King replied that he makes himself work almost every day, and that he makes himself write at least six pages a day. GRRM was astounded, as he has a somewhat noticeable case of writers block. So I thought about it, and since I write in chapters of three sections of about one point five to two thousand words apiece, I figured that I can set myself a goal of a thousand and a half words per two/three hour writing session, and it worked out OK, I think. It's a little easier to sit and say, 'I need to produce 1.5K words today' than say 'I need to write 5 to 6K+ words for the next chapter'. It also helps that I do one sentence mini-outlines for each section at the beginning of each chapter, which makes it easier to produce the words that fill the sections that fill the chapters. Neat, huh?

For those curious, I did use Kensuke Aida and Toji Suzuhara from Evangelion for this chapter. The reason why is twofold: one, I have problems making up original characters, so I borrow from other stories if it's is going to be something simple. I mean, do you really want me to make up an OC for the Class Rep in the Hinata Girls homeroom when the character of Hikari Horaki is available? I liked her character in NGE (or at least the fan fic versions of her character) so I used her in my story. The other reason for using Kensuke and Toji in those character slots is because I don't like them. Toji punched Shinji in NGE because he was the pilot of the mecha that damaged either the shelter or the building his little sister was in. Never mind that Toji was responsible for his sister and they got separated and that is why she got hurt, let's punch the kid who did not even know it happened to make yourself feel better. Kensuke was an insensitive war otaku (and hentai photographer) who only hung around Shinji because he was an Eva pilot and was always bugging him for info that he had to know was probably classified, and to perv along with Toji on Misato, Shinji's drunken yet attractive guardian. So why waste time making up characters that you aren't going to like very much (like the vice principal a couple chapters back) when you have those two sterling images of young manhood? *snerk* BTW, the Ken-man isn't going to be around much longer.

Yes, I reworked the Jedi Code into the Urashima Code. No, the Urashima aren't emotionally repressed celibate monks that deny themselves connections to the universe at large and therefore become the repressive tools of a corrupt senate. (Too harsh? They only take toddlers and infants from their families under coercion to indoctrinate them in their Order, why would you think I am being harsh?) The Urashima are great believers in balance, that is why their code is how it is. That being said, the Urashima do have problems with emotional repression, but it is not due to the code. Don't believe me? Look at Haruka, Kanako, and Granny Hina and tell me how well balanced they are, even in Love Hina canon. However, in this story, I have given reasons why they are that way, and we are going deeper into that with Keitaro, especially after Roanapur.

Congrats to GrumpyGrue for figuring out the 'Dat Ass!' meme that I used when Natsumi was staring at Mutsumi's butt at Todai. If any of you want the real life version of the walnut chocolate chip cookies that he/she won the virtual version of, go to a nearby DoubleTree Hilton Hotel and buy some at the front desk. They come warm from the oven drawer (seriously!) they have there.

Winner of the Most Unusual Place Reading My Story last chapter is Mongolia; the Runner Up is Croatia. The only criteria for this prestigious award is me looking at the stats page and going 'Damn, they're reading my story there?!'. Either that or me looking up the country on Google Maps to locate it.

As of 0115PDT 05Jul16 this story has 302K words, 731K Views, 824 Reviews, 61 C2 Listings, 1308 Story Favorites, and 1205 Story Alerts. Thanks to everyone for reading. *gives peace/victory sign*