Love Hina:
A Different Path Taken.
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Chapter Ten
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Keitaro wiped his brow and took a moment to take in his surroundings. The rotted floor joist's had all been replaced, and the new floor had been laid in. The walls were just bare studs, but they were in, and repairs on the floor above were done, so now he was doing the finish work. He was far from done, but he had come a long way
Behind him he heard the sounds of footsteps in the hallway with the swish of cotton- Motoko's sounds.
"Hey, Motoko." he said, hearing her gasp in surprise from the threshold of the room.
"Urashima." she replied as Keitaro levered himself from where he had been kneeling and turned to face her. "I was going to knock, but I see that was unnecessary."
Keitaro chuckled in amusement at her statement. "I'm pretty good at checking my six." he said. "It's a good habit if you're in my line of work- the other one, not this one." he added, referring to his work as a contractor.
"I imagine it is." Motoko admitted. "However, I am not here to discuss your... employment."
"So, what is it you want to talk about then?" Keitaro asked.
"My schooling." replied Motoko. "It has been almost a week, and while my classmates have been passing me assignments, I fear that if I stay away any longer there will be serious repercussions."
"Falling behind?" Keitaro ventured.
Motoko gave him a brief nod. "That is one of my concerns." she admitted. "Which is connected to my main concern, which is my parents being notified."
"Ahh." Keitaro said, nodding in understanding. "You're afraid if they get notified, that'll force you into a confrontation with your sister."
"Yes." Motoko confirmed. "And while I almost certainly will be risking a confrontation with Tsuruko by going to school, that is far better than the alternative."
"That's true." Keitaro said. "Though, I gotta ask, why are you bringing this up to me?"
Motoko took a moment to collect her thoughts before replying. "I am no match for my sister in a head -to- head fight." she admitted. "Which means that I will have to use... unconventional means to defeat her. And you, Urashima, are a most unconventional man."
Keitaro beamed when she said. "Why, thank you, Ms Ayoma." he told her. "That was one of the nicest thing's anybody's ever said about me."
"You're welcome." Motoko said. "So, what do you suggest?"
Keitaro lit a cigarette and took a long drag on it as he thought about her question. "Well, first of all, we're going to need a map, my laptop, and some dinner." he said, getting a questioning look from her. "To plan out your routes, figure out the terrain, and for energy, because this will take a while." he explained, ticking off on his fingers as he explained the reason for each item.
"I see." Motoko said.
"But first, I'm gonna go get cleaned up because I've been working on this-" he jerked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate what had been Suu's room. "- all day, and I would like to feel human again and not reek of sweat and sawdust."
Motoko nodded her head. "I have no objections to that." she said.
"Good." Keitaro said as he flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette. "I'll get you when I'm ready."
"Okay." Motoko said.
Stepping around her, Keitaro headed off to the baths.
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One hour, a bath, and a change of clothes later, Keitaro was feeling human again and ready to help Motoko with her problem. So, to that end, he walked to to her room and knocked on the door.
"Yes?" she called out.
"I'm done getting cleaned up." he told her. "You ready?"
"Yes."
"Okay, come down to my room and we'll get started." Keitaro said.
"I'll be right there." Motoko answered.
"'kay."
Keitaro headed to his room and Motoko knocked on his door a few minutes later.
"Come in." he said in response to her knock.
The door to his room slid open and Motoko stepped in, dressed in her usual hakama and gi.
"Sit, get comfortable and grab something to eat." Keitaro said, gesturing for her to sit down with him at the table.
As she sat down at the table, Motoko arched an eyebrow at the platter heaped with finger food set off to the side along with a large pitcher of lemonade.
"Interesting choice of food." she commented.
Keitaro nodded as he snatched a morsel off the platter. "Thank Shinobu for this." he explained. "I asked her to whip me up something that didn't require plates."
"Ahh.'' was Motoko's response. "So, where do you want to begin?" she asked as she poured herself a drink.
"What's your usual route?' Keitaro asked after he swallowed his food.
Motoko pursed her lips in thought as she studied the map, trying to find where the Hinata Inn was. Keitaro watched her for a moment, took a guess as to what she was thinking, and tapped a spot on the map.
"We're right here." he said.
"Thank you." Motoko told him.
Once she had her location figured out, everything else fell into place.
"The way I take is, I catch the tram and take it down to the train station, then I get on the No 4 train and take it to here, where I get off and walk the rest of the way to my school."
Keitaro nodded as she traced out her route. "Okay." he said. "So, what do know about alternate routes?" he asked.
"Alternate routes?" was Motoko's response.
"Other bus, tram, and train lines you could take to get there." Keitaro elaborated.
"Ohhhh..." Motoko said, nodding in understanding, then stopped as a thought hit her. "I don't know." she said.
"Okay then." Keitaro said as he ran his finger over the touch pad of his laptop, bringing it out of powersaving mode. "Lets start with what other lines are running and when."
Accessing the transit authority's website, Keitaro clicked on a link and waited for the page to load. As he waited, he glanced at the map as a thought occurred to him.
"Hey, Motoko, how early can you wake up that's practical?" he asked.
Motoko blinked at the abruptness of the question, and thought about it for a moment. "At home, we usually rise at four thirty in the morning." she gave in way of an answer.
Keitaro nodded once. "And how long does it take you to get ready in the morning?" he asked.
"Not long." Motoko answered. "Twenty five minutes at most."
"Okay then." Keitaro said as the page finished loading. "That gives me some parameters..."
Clicking a few options, Keitaro read through the various schedules and marked off the stops on the map. Motoko watched him as he worked, helping herself to some food while he worked. After about half an hour, he had several dozen locations marked out on the map along with three pages worth of notes.
"Okay." he said, cracking his knuckles. "Lets get down to brass tacks, shall we?"
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It was close to eleven when they knocked off for the night, saying that they were off to a good start and that he had some other things to attend to. Considering that she walked past a drunken, grinning, Kitsune in the hallway outside and that her and Urashima had walked off together heading to the back of the Inn, she had a pretty good idea on just what those other things were and she wanted to think no more of it, or anything else, for that matter – at least for that night.
So she went back to her room, changed into her pajamas, and went to bed. She wasn't worrying about what Keitaro and Kitsune were doing, she wasn't going to worry about what she was going to do if confronted by her sister. The only thing Motoko was going to do was rest, and make herself ready to face the day tomorrow.
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When Motoko stepped off the train it took her a moment to get her bearings. As part of the plans that she and Urashima had worked out the night before, she was taking a different route to school than her usual one, and she was trying to navigate while keeping an eye out for her sister.
"While I am facing my fears, I am not going to make it easy for them." she reminded herself.
Once she had sorted out where she was, Motoko started walking. While she was facing her fears, it would not do to be late for school.
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Keitaro was in the kitchen, grabbing some lunch, when the phone rang. Putting said lunch down on the counter, he headed into the foyer to where the phone was and answered it before the answering machine could pick it up.
"Moshi Moshi."
"Is this the Hina Women's Dormitory?" the person on the other end asked, using one of the many names the Inn had picked up over the years.
"Yeah." Keitaro answered. "I'm Keitaro Urashima, the manager. May I ask who's calling?"
"I am a representative of the God's Cry School, and I calling because of an... incident that occurred between two of our members on your property."
"Ah." Keitaro said, a smile on his face as he realized that little email he had sent had gotten someone's attention. "You're talking about Motoko and her batshit crazy sister, right?''
"Yes." the voice said, their annoyance at his brusque manner apparent in their voice. "That is why I am calling. The elders of our school would like to know exactly what happened leading up to that incident."
"Oh, okay." Keitaro said, leaning up against the old registration desk. "What happened was that Tsuruko showed up and told her sister that it was time for Motoko to take up Tsuruko's old job- the one she had dropped in her lap so she could go play housewife- and Motoko was so terrified of her sister that she panicked and said she was engaged to me so she wouldn't have to tell her sister no.
And then her sister found out that was a ruse to buy her time, and was about to go Kurasowa on her when I put a stop to it."
"By humiliating Tsuruko." the caller pointed out.
"She was the one who drew her sword on her sister."Keitaro countered. "And furthermore, I'm the manager here, and she was threatening one of my tenants. You pull a weapon, you had better be prepared for the consequences."
On the other end he heard the caller sigh. "As much as it irritates me to say it, you do have a point there." they said.
"Don't feel bad, I do that to people a lot." joked Keitaro.
"I'm sure you do." the person on the other end said, Keitaro suppressing the urge to snicker at their irritation. "However, getting back to the original point of the conversation, your explanation as to what happened prior to the events shown in the video has raised some very pointed questions about Tsuruko Ayoma's behavior and we will be looking into it."
"Good!" Keitaro said. "Because someone like her walking around is a recipe for disaster."
"Indeed." the caller said. "I will pass along your opinion to the elders as well. Thank you."
"Hey, glad to be of help." Keitaro said. "That everything?"
"Yes."
"Okay, good. I got stuff to do. Later." Keitaro said before hanging up.
He sighed and sat there for moment before levering himself off of the desk. "Buncha batshit crazy loons, the lot of them." he muttered as he headed back to his lunch.
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All throughout the day Motoko found herself playing catch up, either with lessons and schoolwork, or school gossip and politics. As such, the hours just blurred by with the added benefit of keeping her mind completely off her sister.
When the final bell rang, however, the subject of Tsuruko dropped into the forefront of her mind like an anvil. Putting her inside shoes into her locker, Motoko closed the door and sighed.
"I was going to have to face this sooner or later." she told herself. "You have a plan. You have plans for what to do if she confronts you. Follow them."
Squaring her shoulders, Motoko picked up her bag and sword, concealed in a bokken case, and walked outside. It was a clear day outside, pleasantly warm. Students were milling around the schoolyard, chatting and gossiping before heading home or to their after school activities.
She didn't feel her sister nearby, not that Motoko was banking on what her chi senses told her. One of the things she and her sister had been taught was how to mask their chi when stalking a monster. It would be foolish to think that Tsuruko would forgo that tactical advantage.
So that was why she kept her head on swivel as she walked across the schoolyard to the front gates of the school. She didn't see any obvious threats, but then again, she wasn't banking on that. Tsuruko was very good at her craft.
Motoko paused at the gates to give the immediate area a detailed scrutiny. It was clear, or at least it appeared to be. Sighing slightly, she turned right, like she was taking her usual route to the train station. She walked for about a block, then made a sudden left and darted down a side street.
Down the side street for two and a half blocks, then juke down an alleyway onto the next street over, go back up a block, then make a right on the cross street and follow that one for a couple of blocks, then turn again.
She did that for the next forty five minutes, before she emerged out onto the street that would take her to the next train station over from her usual one. Just as Motoko turned right, she heard the sound of a large bird's wings beating the air as it took off.
She stopped dead in her tracks and looked around at her surroundings.
"Was that Tsuruko's crane?" she asked herself. "Urashima mentioned that it was with her, and that there might be the possibility that she would use it to track me."
There was no way to be sure, though, that was her sister's pet bird. She had heard it take off, but she hadn't seen it. That was the problem.
Huffing her breath, Motoko rested her hand on her bokken case, reassured by the weight of her sword within. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was getting close to the arrival time of her train and hurried off to the station.
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Motoko was never more glad to see the Hinata station roll by the windows as the train pulled in. When train was stopped and the doors opened, she got up, slung her bokken case and her book bag, and exited the train.
On the platform she weaved through the commuters getting onto and off of the train, heading for the exit while she plotted her route to the Inn from where she was. Keitaro had estimated that the most likely place for her to run into Tsuruko was when she got out of school, and when she got close to the Inn, so he had advised her that this was the time to be the most cautious.
And so she was. As soon as she exited the station she was on the move, walking at a brisk pace but not too brisk. She took seemingly random turns, doubling back on her route several times before she judged that she was close enough to the Inn and made a beeline straight for it.
Motoko heaved a sigh of relief when she stepped past the gate onto the grounds of the Inn. Pausing, she took a moment to compose herself before climbing the seemingly endless steps up to the Inn. She had managed to make it to and from school without incident, and now she had more pressing matters to attend to- like catching up on her schoolwork.
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The next day she did the same thing, taking a different, random, route to and from school. Motoko saw no sign of her sister that day, nor the next. She did that all week, gradually becoming more familiar with the area and able to vary her route's differently.
She stopped by his room to thank Urashima and found him smoking a cigarette and staring off into space, a thoughtful frown on his face.
"You need something, Motoko?" he asked before she could announce her presence.
"How- how did you know I was here?" she asked, startled.
"You have a very determined stride, along with the swish of your hakama and gi." Urashima answered. "Like I told you, I keep an ear on what's happening around me. It's very important in my line of work."
"Oh." Motoko said. "Anyways, I was stopping by to thank you for your advice."
"Thanks." Urashima said.
Motoko frowned as Urashima took another drag on his cigarette. ''You seem troubled." she said.
Urashima exhaled a blue cloud of smoke and flicked his ash off into an ashtray. "That, Motoko, is both a very succinct and a very understated way of putting how I feel." he said.
"Is it something you can talk about?" Motoko asked.
"Yeah, I can." Urashima said, turning to face her. "I'm sure you know about how the Inter-Dimensional Guild of Mad Scientists issued Suu an ultimatum?"
Motoko nodded. She had heard about that from Naru. She had dismissed it as just more of Suu's weirdness, especially the part about the rocket -propelled flying pig. But, given Urashima's serious demeanor, she decided that it wasn't so silly after all.
"Naru mentioned it to me." Motoko answered.
"Well. I just got a head's up from a friend of mine who's a member. Their patience has just ran out." Urashima said sourly.
"What does that mean?" Motoko asked.
Urashima took a deep breath, exhaled, and ran a head through his hair. "Nothing good. Though I suppose there is a minor bit of good fortune: According to my friend, they have an interest in some of her tech, so they're sending someone to snatch her, rather than use their usual method."
"What's their usual method?" Motoko asked.
"A cruise missile."
Motoko blinked. A kidnapping attempt was much better than getting blown up.
"Well, if they're sending someone to kidnap her, we can stop them..." she started to suggest, but Urashima shook his head.
"No. Not with who their sending." he said.
Motoko crossed her arms and looked at Urashima. "Who are they sending then, that you, someone who faced down my sister and didn't even blink, has you so unwilling to face them?"
Urashima didn't answer for several long moments, instead taking a long drag on his cigarette and slowly exhaling a blue stream of smoke.
"You know Outer Heaven?" he asked.
Motoko nodded. They were a micro-nation set up in the Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl that nobody seemed to know much about.
"One of the founders is a member of the Guild. He got tapped to do the job." Urashima explained.
"So what makes him so dangerous?" Motoko asked.
"Well, let's put it this way: if he comes here, he'd be perfectly okay with butchering the lot of us- you, me, Naru, all of us- just to get to her." Urashima said as Motoko's eyes went wide. Continuing, he added "The man is violent, psychopathic, ruthless, and very experienced. He would splatter us all over the Inn and grab Suu, probably after he kneecapped her so she couldn't run."
"Kneecapped? What does that mean?" Motoko asked.
"It's when you bust someone's knees." explained Urashima. "The guy that's coming after Suu like's to use a. .44 magnum, so she'd pretty much lose her leg from the knee down."
Motoko paled as she added up what Urashima had told her.
"You starting to get the picture?" Urashima asked.
"What can you do?" she asked in return.
Urashima stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and stretched.
"Send her home." he said when he was done.
"Send her home?" Motoko echoed. "That's the best option you can think of, with that, that monster coming for her?
Urashima leaned back and considered his pack of cigarettes. "It is the best option she's got and I can explain why." he said.
"So, explain."
Urashima took a deep breath and began. "Okay. She's a princess of Molmol, right? That means she'll have security forces to defend her and a secure location to hole up in, not to mention being able to be evacuated if necessary.
Here, she'd have no chance. There, the odds get better."
Motoko listened to what he had to say and thought it over in her head, comparing that to what she knew was available at the Inn, and she had to admit, Urashima had a point.
"Okay, I can see your point. That is a much better position than here." she admitted. "So, the question I have now, is, how much time does she have?"
"Well, I got the message about half an hour ago, and Skeeter let me know as soon as he heard, so... considering all the factors in play, I'd say that the guy who's gonna be coming for her has about half a day's head start.
Of course, it'll still be a week minimum before he can even start heading here, so that's a plus."
Motoko cocked her head to one side and raised a questioning eyebrow.
"He's gonna be doing an international kidnapping. He's gotta figure out a way in, a way out with her, and be able to do it without attracting the attention of a lot of people who he will not want paying attention to him.
That means that he's gotta get in contact with people. He's gotta schedule things. He's gotta make payments. Not to mention the fact he's gonna want intel on the area as well. All of that takes time." Urashima explained to her unasked question.
The certainty of his explanation gave rise to another question for Motoko.
"How do you know all of this?" she asked. "You sound like you have personal experience with this sort of thing."
Urashima merely shrugged. "Being a contractor is interesting work." was all he said.
"That's all you have to say?" Motoko asked.
"On that, yeah." was Urashima's response as he glanced at his phone. "And switching back to the original subject, it's time I went and talked to Suu."
Getting up, Urashima pocketed his cigarettes, lighter, and phone before exiting the room.
"You know, Narusawa is not going to like this." Motoko said as he walked down the hall.
"I know that." he responded. "Which is why I'm doing this now while she's at that tutoring gig of hers. One fight at a time."
Motoko sighed after Urashima rounded the corner and was out of sight.
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End.