Thanks for your reviews ZanyAnimeGirl (Fuyuki knows...enough about the Kero Ball, the rest he'll figure out along the way ;) ) Malsyn, Latios381 (Katazuchi can't help the way his face is :P )Sas, jozs001, Heinous966 and KeronianLibrary (oh, you sweetheart 3 ) !
I really like writing Fuyuki as murder-y arsehole and I don't know why...? xD
"What...What are you doing, Hinata-kun?" Momoka yelled. It was a redundant question, really. She knew that he was pointy a deadly alien weapon at a poor, defenceless, injured being perfectly well.
"Nishizawa-san, you need to move," Fuyuki replied. His voice did not rise even a little. "That thing...Those things...They're dangerous. Get away from it." He readjusted his grip on the weapon.
"H-he's hurt, he's not going to attack us!" she said, her arms instinctively pulling the little alien closer to her body. She took a closer look at him, taking in his big, terrified eyes, and his tiny, cute little pits, and the huge, blueish-purlpleish bruise on his little black leg. "I-I think his leg is really badly hurt; he needs help..."
"It's one of them, one of the aliens that have destroyed...everything!" Fuyuki exclaimed, gesturing to the wide wasteland of rubble and debris around them that was once Tokyo. "Now, just...just back away from it, Nishizawa-san, or-"
"Or what, Hinata-kun?" she almost shrieked. "Or what? What are you going to do? You can't...You can't possibly be thinking...?"
"Or...Or you might get hurt."
"How? How could I get hurt? He's not going to attack us; he can't!"
"It can! It will! It's an alien! I've got to-!" His finger almost hit the button on the weapon. His breaths were being ripped from his chest in ragged huffs. His eyes were...God, they were not even his eyes anymore! Fuyuki Hinata's eyes were always bright, and twinkling with friendliness and happiness. Momoka very quickly fell in love with those eyes because of how dazzling, how beautiful they were. The eyes that were in his skull at this moment were... They were dark, shaking, dominated by fear and rage. But it was still him, right? It was still Fuyuki, or was it a total stranger who was about to use the weapon on the helpless alien?
"I've got to kill it before it kills someone else!"
"But, he won't! W-will you?" Momoka looked down at the little alien in her arms. He shook his head frantically.
"I won't! I swear I won't!" he squeaked. "I haven't hurt anyone at all! I-it's not how Keronians invade!"
" Are you kidding me?" Fuyuki roared. "I've seen you things hurt people; I watched as one of you things killed my sister!"
"Eeh? B-but that's not how we invade!" Tamama protested, looking very confused. "Huh, it must've been Giroro-senpai," he mumbled, "He sometimes gets carried away..."
"Hinata-kun, just because one of the aliens killed someone doesn't mean this one would!" Momoka pleaded. She could not let him do this...She could not stand by while Fuyuki- while anyone, harms a poor creature like the one cowering in her arms.
"Nishizawa-san, MOVE!" His command had a horrible sense of finality about it. The alien flinched and buried his face deeper in her arms, whimpering.
"Oh God, he's actually going to isn't he?" Momoka thought. "As soon as I move, he's going to kill him- he might not even wait for me to move! He intends to kill him by any means... H-how could this happen? How could he have been pushed this far? I...I won't let him do this. I won't let him kill the alien- I won't let Fuyuki fall over the edge!"
In that moment, as she picked up the small tadpole and cradled him closer, she felt something deep deep inside her head and deeper in her heart go -Snap-
"NO, Fuyuki-kun! I won't!" she yelled. "I won't let you become a killer!"
Fuyuki blinked in total shock. "Huh? K-...Killer...?" Slowly , the hand holding the weapon wavered, then lowered. His eyes fixed on the ground at his feet, brooding desperately.
Suddenly, he thrust the Kero Ball into his hoodie pocket, stormed in the direction of the mound of rubble they had hidden behind, snatched up two of the abandoned metal bottles. Then he stormed back in the opposite direction, right past Momoka and Tamama, who were still frozen to the spot, and kept right on walking.
"Wh...Where the hell are you going?" she called after him.
"To fetch water!" he yelled over his shoulder, "Y'know, our world-saving mission?"
Watching him storm further and further away, Momoka struggled to her feet, still holding the alien. All her courage and anger and boldness had coursed through her veins a second ago dissipated in a heartbeat, leaving her trembling in near-exhaustion.
"Um...My name's Tamama, by the way..." the little alien mumbled.
"Oh...I-I'm Momoka..."
"You're back then," Keroro jogged to catch up with Garuru and Giroro in the ship corridor, "So? Find any inhabited campsites?"
The brothers exchanged a quick glance before Garuru spoke. "No, Sergeant. But I think we can positively identify one site as being inhabited. By refugees or the Pekoponian Resistance, I'm unsure."
"It doesn't really matter though, does it? We deal with all Pekoponians the same," Keroro smiled wryly. "Pinpoint it on the map in my office and I'll tell Tamama to check it tomorrow."
"I'll do that now, sir," Garuru nodded and was about to walk off, until Keroro called him back.
"Ah, but don't touch the RX-78-2 Gundam on my desk! The paint is still drying."
Giroro frowned, "The RX-what-dam?"
"The model robot I showed you a few days ago. I built it and, if I may be so bold, it looks freaking amazing!"
The brothers scowled in sync. "You are the sergeant in charge of a planetary invasion. You cannot waste time with toys. GET BACK TO WORK!" Keroro was practically thrown back against the wall by the joint brotherly bellow.
"Erm, well, there's one last thing, actually..." he said, rubbing his head and flinching as the two glared at him. Keroro straightened himself up and tried to make himself look like the awesome leader he was as he spoke, "We're getting a couple of Pekoponian servants on the ship."
"Servants?" Giroro's eyebrow arched.
"Yeah, you know, the millions of Pekoponians we've been abducting? Well, HQ wants to see how effective the 'brainwashing' or 'resistance-crushing' was, so they're sending over a pair of servants for us to evaluate, to make sure all the enslaved Pekoponians don't suddenly get back all their resistance and, um...kill us all."
"If they're enslaved, why are we calling them 'servants'?"
"To comply with the Protection Of Indigenous Species Post Mass Planetary Invasion Act of 2001," Garuru answered. "Any and all individuals of another species we abduct to use as slaves must be treated relatively fairly, or the Cosmic Police will charge the entire army with war crimes."
"Huh...What does 'relatively fairly' mean?"
"We're not allowed to torture, maim, kill, rape, use them as target practise or laboratory experiments, and the government must provide them a basic wage and accommodation on their home planet."
"So what are they going to be doing on the ship?"
Keroro shrugged. "Cleaning, maybe? Whatever odd job that needs doing, I guess. Anyway, time's a-wasting you two, get back to work!"
Fuyuki and Momoka were trudging back to the Sanctum through the ruins, with the injured Tamama being carried like a baby by Momoka and two canisters of water being carried by Fuyuki and a very heavy air of pure awkward suffocating them.
Fuyuki had been ready to blast the tiny, squeaky bastard into atoms, but Momoka just had to trigger the conscience that still lingered in his head, to trigger the thing had heard the word "killer" as something repulsive and evil and forbidden. He gritted his teeth and readjusted his grip on the metal canisters, which were obscenely heavy now that they were filled. Not only were they stretching his arms to breaking point, the weight was putting shocking strain on his wounded back. In his mind's eye, he could see the scar tissue being pulled open excruciatingly slowly. Well, it certainly felt like it was being pulled open. As soon as he got back to the Sanctum, he'd give Katazuchi the water, swallow a bunch of painkillers, and go see Nurse Nano and have her check if his back was still in one piece.
Oh, and there was the little matter of letting the soldiers take care of Tamama. How they took care of it was not any of Fuyuki's concern. He would just take it up to the guards at the door and hand it over. After all, this one was not the one that killed his sister.
He groaned as he stumbled over a rock, just managing to keep his footing and his hold on the canisters but doing something nasty to his back. Now, every step hurt instead of just every other step.
"Fu-...Fuyuki-kun," Momoka spoke quietly and nervously, all too aware that he still had an alien weapon in his pocket, "Let me take one; your back-"
"You're holding the alien," he pointed out, curtly. He didn't want her help. He was angry with her for what she did earlier, for protecting that thing, for...stopping him from doing something terrible.
"He's not that heavy," she tucked a half-asleep Tamama into the crook of one arm and held out the other to take a canister. "Please let me help, y-you'll hurt yourself. Please?"
"Whatever," he grumbled, gritting his teeth as he gave up some of his burden. It burned him to know that, later on when his blood had cooled down, he would be thankful for what she did. It burned him to know that his morality, his humanity was ebbing away with each day, each reminder that his life had crumbled around him, just like the city had crumbled.
But he would have to dwell on that later. One more issue in his soul for him to work through in his nightmares. Because right now, two soldiers were marching up the ruined road to meet them, rifles in hand.
"Hey, you two! You okay?" one solider asked, a podgy and kind looking man called out.
The second soldier, a slip of a hard-faced woman, scowled. "Try being a little more professional."
"They're just kids," Soldier One replied. "Katazuchi sent us out to come looking for you; you'd been a long time and he was worried."
"We're fine," Fuyuki replied, "we got some water...and a prisoner."
Momoka, Soldiers One and Two jolted with shock at what he said, and the callousness of how he said it. Momoka looked down Tamama, now more awake and more frightened but stayed silent. She then looked at the soldiers with uneasiness and concern. "H-he's not dangerous! We found him being attacked by a wild dog; he's hurt his leg. He won't try to hurt us or anything, s-so..." She glanced at their guns.
Soldier Two briefly trained her weapon on Tamama, but lowered it again upon realizing that aiming at the alien was aiming at the girl who was holding it too. "A-and you just picked him up?" Soldier One squeaked in disbelief. Maybe because he was looking at an alien, maybe because he was being told the alien wasn't dangerous.
"Katazuchi-san will probably want to interrogate him," Fuyuki stated, handing his water canister to Soldier Two.
"Um...a-alright then...We'd better get moving in case there are any more of them in the area."
Koyuki noticed it had been three hours since Momoka and the new boy, Fuyuki, had left and was beginning to become very worried. She knew the well they were going to from her own supply-scouting missions that Katazuchi had sent her on in the past. She never went to the well itself, but she knew it was there, the path one would have to take to get to it and she knew that the journey should take no longer than two hours. Even for a non-ninja.
She had only known Momoka for a short time, but they had gotten to know each other well enough for her to worry, and for them to think of each other as friends. She knew Fuyuki for an even shorter time, but worried about him just as much. The first time she saw him, he looked...broken.
Just when she was about to see Katazuchi, to volunteer to go out and look for them, she saw the both of them walking into the Sleeping Quarters, looking thoroughly exhausted. "You're back!" she smiled at them, "But, what happened?"
Fuyuki closed his eyes and sighed heavily, "Very. Long. Story."
Momoka glanced at him, but rather than it being a lingering, doe-eyed gaze that it usually was, it was brief. Incredibly brief. Surprisingly brief...and a bit sad? "Katazuchi-san made us swear not to tell anyone," she said quietly.
Koyuki frowned. "Why not?"
Fuyuki shook his head, implying that they couldn't tell anyone that either, and made his way to his bed, where he collapsed onto the mattress.
"Are you okay, Momoka-san?" Koyuki asked. She nodded, but still looked just as glum, and walked away. Strangely, she didn't walk over to Fuyuki, but in the opposite direction.
Something was wrong here, something was very wrong indeed. Koyuki had never heard of Katazuchi swearing people to silence, or sending children younger or less experienced than her to fetch supplies. She had to find out what was going on...He would know. He knows everything that goes on in the Sanctum; he sees everything.
Stealthily, she made her way through the Sleeping Quarters, down the corridor, to the wall at the end with the loose grate on the ventilation shaft in the upper right corner. She quickly checked over her shoulder- the coast was clear- then stretched up, wiggled the cover off and hopped up into the vent. The networks of vents in the Sanctum were cramped, dark, dusty and smelled just a tad musty. But she'd crawled through worse. She just couldn't wrap her head around how he could stay in here.
It wasn't long before she reached him. He changed the specific spot where he stayed every day, but she never found it too difficult to find him. "There you are," she whispered, smiling.
The meditating blue and white Keronian with a grey mask opened his eyes. "Hello Koyuki-dono," he greeted, with the trace of a smile appearing from behind his mask.
"Hi Dororo."
