The next day, Tororo was jolted awake by a hell of a lot of noise, followed by a startled yelp and a few pairs of feet legging it through the hall directly outside his room. Rubbing his eyes sleepily, he groaned to himself. How many hours of sleep had he gotten last night… two? Maybe three? He wasn't really in the mood for this.

Stomping out of his room, he was about to yell at whoever was out there, but stopped when he was met with a very torn looking Taruru tightly gripping on to a very grumpy looking Garuru's shoulder, as if to stop him running off.

"Just let them go, leader, they didn't mean any harm, really" Taruru pleaded. Garuru let out a very heavy sigh before shrugging out of Taruru's grasp and practically stomped away from him in the direction of his living quarters. Tororo let a brief moment of silence ensue before saying anything.

"What on Keron just happened?"

"Karara happened, of course" Taruru replied, smiling in an exasperated way.

"What has she done now?" Tororo asked, more curious than fed up now.

"I'll give you the abridged version: She woke him up. Never a good thing, obviously, but she didn't know that" Taruru explained lamely, shuddering as he remembered the one time he himself had tried to rouse Garuru from his slumber. Being thrown across the room was quite an experience for him.

"He did look pretty pissed. Did she molest him awake or something?" Tororo asked, scratching the back of his head nonchalantly.

"Well, she tried. If you call kissing someone good morning molestation"

Tororo chuckled and shook his head.

"Poor guy"

Taruru was going to reply when he was interrupted by Karara and Chiroro popping out from around the corner simultaneously.

"I-is he gone?" Chiroro asked, looking around nervously.

"He's so feisty! I love it!" Karara smiled blissfully, as if unaware that she had nearly been killed by the lieutenant's wrath.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure Leader doesn't appreciate being woken up by a child less than half his age forcing herself on him" Tororo deadpanned, rolling his eyes.

"Hey I'm not a kid; I'm only like two years younger than you! And I could tell he did like it really"

Now it was Chiroro's turn to roll her eyes.

"Karara, he tried to strangle you. It was terrifying! Not exactly the most pleased reaction in the world…" She stated, the last sentence tinged with sarcasm.

"But I did save you…" Taruru added, not so secretly hoping that Karara would give him some attention. After all, it was pretty obvious that he had a crush on her. To everyone other than her, of course.

"Yeah yeah, whatever. I wasn't in any danger whatsoever. Which is why I'm gonna try again later!" Karara said with a confident smile, completely missing the disappointed look on the blue frog's face. Grabbing her sister's hand, she sped off down the hall for god knows what reason.

Tororo watched them with a bemused expression, before turning back to Taruru, who looked so dejected it was almost comical.

"You could try being more forward, instead of beating around the bush" Tororo suggested. Taruru sighed in response.

"We've been friends since we were babies. We literally grew up together, it's not quite that easy for me," He frowned "Anyway, since when were you a romance expert?" he added, raising an eyebrow.

"Pu pu pu, since never, clearly," Tororo laughed "I'm only suggesting the obvious; like being patient and never giving up if you really love her and stuff"

Taruru did look a little disturbed at that last part.

"Ok… I'll have to keep that in mind…" he said as he slowly made his way down the hall and away from Tororo, eying him suspiciously as he went.

Truthfully, even Tororo himself was a little creeped out about what he just said. He wasn't sure where he had got those suggestions from. He sounded like one of those people who wrote the problem pages for teenage girl's magazines. Not that he'd read any, or course.

"Fuck this, I'm hungry" Tororo said aloud to himself, snapping himself out of his thoughts and turning around, shuffling towards the kitchen. When he got there, only Zoruru and Chiroro were at the table eating. Tororo took note of the second bowl, half filled with breakfast cereal, directly by Chiroro's side.

"I didn't think you were a glutton, Chiroro" He said, his eyebrow slightly raised at he started preparing his own breakfast on the work top. Chiroro looked at him questioningly before realising he was referring to extra bowl she had and blushing.

"H-hey, this isn't mine! It was Karara's, but she ran off somewhere a couple of minutes ago and left it here," She cried "It's not like you can talk, is it?" she added, gesturing the giant buffet of a breakfast that Tororo had just sat down with. Tororo only rolled his eyes and started digging in, Zoruru watching him with a furrowed brow.

"You will get fat one day, punk. It's not healthy" He grumbled at him.

"Whatever, mum," Tororo replied sarcastically "I'm clearly a bottomless pit, I'm not getting fat any time soon" He punctuated this last sentence by chomping at a huge clump of bacon with a loud 'nom'.

"Fatty bum" Pururu chimed as she walked into the room, affectionately pinching at the excess fat on his hip.

"Puwuwu!" Tororo groaned through his food stuffed face, laying his hand protectively over his exposed love handle almost protectively.

Chiroro stood up suddenly, looking as if she'd just remembered something.

"What's up, Chiroro?" Pururu asked as she placed her salad on the table.

"Karara's been gone for a while now, she might have gotten herself in trouble" She stated.

"She's only been gone about five minutes" Zoruru pointed out.

"This is my sister we're talking about. She doesn't NEED five minutes" Chiroro replied, leaving the kitchen.

"I'll go with her" Pururu said before leaving her salad so close to Tororo's plate it was almost on top of it. If that wasn't a hint, he didn't know what was.

After a few moments of uneventful silence, Zoruru gave Tororo a curious look.

"Well? Aren't you going to follow them?" he asked. Tororo looked at him, his brows furrowed slightly in confusion.

"Was I supposed to?" he asked.

"Nooo… I just thought you would. You seem quite… attached to her" he replied, raising his eyebrow. He grinned at Tororo's rapidly reddening face.

"W-what are you getting at, Scraps?" he huffed rhetorically, trying to seem indifferent. Zoruru only shrugged before leaving the table, allowing Tororo to finally eat in peace.


"Karara! Karara, where are you?" Chiroro called out worriedly, hoping that Karara hadn't gotten lost in the many twists and turns of the hallways within the base. She was vaguely aware that Pururu had caught up to her at one point, and could hear her calling for Karara along with her.

Spotting Garuru's office, Chiroro made a beeline for it. She had a feeling Karara had gone back to have another go at 'winning him over' by herself.

As she and Pururu entered the room, they were met with a rather peculiar sight.

Garuru was sat behind his desk, a pile of paperwork laid out in front of him, but rather than concentrating on them, he was glaring across the room at Karara, who wasn't too far at the door. She was staring right back at him, in a startled, deer in car headlights kind of way. They were completely unmoving, as if the first person to budge would lose this very odd staring contest. Chiroro had to wonder just how long they had been frozen like that.

Sensing the presence of her sister, Karara appeared to crumble and scampered towards her and Pururu.

"Sis, he's freaking me out! Why didn't you follow me and help?" She complained, fixing Chiroro with a death glare.

"I-I was eating…?" she answered, almost in a question.

Karara was about to retort when Garuru placed his hands on his desk roughly to gain their attention.

"Leave. Now." He did not sound happy.

Pururu and the twins promptly left the room as they were told, walking silently, albeit quickly away from the office.

"Thanks for helping me back there, Pururu!" Karara gushed just as they rounded the nearest corner, taking both of her hands and gazing at her in admiration. Pururu looked very confused, and a little uncomfortable under the intense stare of the green tadpole.

"Oh god, no way" Chiroro mumbled, trying as hard as possible to stifle a disbelieving chuckle, but failing to hide a smirk.

Karara whipped her head around and glared at her.

"Just what are you suggesting, Chiroro? You're so gross!" She frowned, angry again, letting go of Pururu's hands so she could turn around to glare at Chiroro. The yellow tadpole recoiled a little under her sister's glare, wondering if she would actually do something to her.

As luck would have it, Tororo rounded the corner into their section of the hall, having just finished his massive breakfast. He stopped when he spotted the three females stood at the other end of the hallway.

"Hey… what's going on here?" he asked as he approached them, sensing the almost violent atmosphere. No sooner had he finished his question, Pururu began hastily explaining what had gone down in Garuru's office, effectively stopping Karara from garbling nonsense at him in her anger. It didn't stop her from glaring at her sister, though.

"I just don't see why you're so mad at me! I didn't do anything!" Chiroro said to her sister, having eventually cracked under her unwavering stare. Karara merely huffed and narrowed her eyes.

Then Tororo said something he would soon regret.

"I would imagine she's a bit embarrassed or nervous or something. People snap under pressure" he pointed out.

A brief moment of silence passed, before Karara turned to him, a bright blush on her face.

"T-Tororo…" she breathed. He looked at her oddly, not liking the way she said his name.

"…Yeah?"

Suddenly, she ran at him and threw her arms around his neck.

"You saved me, my love!" she cried.

Oh no.

"Pu… pu pu…" Tororo laughed nervously as his body stiffened, not enjoying having his personal space invaded one bit. He stared desperately up at Pururu and Chiroro, the former smirking, clearly finding this hilarious for some reason. Chiroro however, she was just staring blankly back at him.

Tororo was suddenly aware that he was being suffocated, so he awkwardly ducked out of Karara's embrace.

"Pu pu… funny thing… I just remembered that I have a hell of a lot of work to do…very important stuff, mustn't be disturbed … er… bye!" he said before running as fast as his chubby little legs could carry him out of sight. Which was actually pretty fast.

"Hey, come back! I'm not done thanking you, yet!" Karara cried as she attempted to follow the path he'd taken.

The hallway was suddenly rather quiet. Pururu glanced down, a little curious as to why Chiroro hadn't run after her sister like usual. This was the second time today.

"Are you alright, Chiroro?" she asked. Chiroro snapped out of her daze and turned her head to look at her. She noticed that Pururu's face looked less white than usual, but didn't comment on it.

"Of course I'm fine" She said, so quickly that Pururu became suspicious. She glanced down the hall for a moment before raising an eyebrow in question.

"Is this about… Tororo?" she asked, failing to hold back a small grin.

Chiroro visibly paled, and began to try her damned hardest to change the subject. Looking around frantically, she spotted her saviour in the form of a small, cloth like mound on the floor. It had what looked like a decorative pink triangle on it, so she assumed it was a handkerchief.

"H-hey, I think you dropped something" she said quickly before going over to pick it up. Pururu chuckled at her obvious avoidance of the question.

"Now, don't try to change the… the…" she trailed off.

Chiroro wasn't holding a hankie.

She was holding a tadpole tail.

Saved by the metamorphosis, it seemed.

"N-no… NO!" Pururu gasped, blatantly groping at her own backside, hoping to god it wasn't her tail, although there wasn't really any denying it.

Giving in, she shakily reached under her hat and pulled out a little pocket mirror, looking into it before crushing it in her palm. The white patch on her face had receded, too.

Chiroro decided that this distraction was going very wrong, very quickly, so she legged it down the hall, Pururu's beloved tail clutched in her hand to protect it for her.

She ran to the first place that came to mind – Tororo's room. Using her empty hand, she pummelled his door.

"Let me in!" She cried, half expecting Pururu to have suddenly turned into a serial killer, and start looking specifically for her first.

"Get lost!" Tororo called back. Chiroro was confused and hurt for a second, before she remembered her sister's sudden proclamation of love not too long ago.

"Karara isn't with me! We were arguing, remember? Please let me in!" She answered back.

Hearing the obvious desperation in her voice, Tororo finally opened his door, Chiroro nearly crashing into him as she ran into his room to enable him to close the door faster. Tororo turned and gave Chiroro a look, raising his eyebrow in mild amusement.

"What's up with you? You looked as if you were fearing for your life just then, pu pu!" he chuckled, waiting patiently for Chiroro to regain control of her breathing so that she could answer him. It seemed she was having trouble however, so she just held up Pururu's tail. Tororo said nothing as he came towards her and gently took it off her.

"What kind of elaborate prank is this?" he asked disbelievingly, inspecting the tail in the light of one of the many office lamps littering the work tables in his room.

"It's not a prank, it's the real deal! Honestly, it was just there on the floor. I thought it was a hankie so I went to get it for her" Chiroro explained, sitting on the floor to rest her legs.

"I'll bet she's on a mission now, eh? You'd better lay low in here for a while then. Can't have you getting stabbed to death with one of her myriad of needles" Tororo replied.

She smiled and thanked him as she got up to have a closer look at the tail herself.


Later on, when Chiroro was confident that the 'storm' was mostly over, she left the lab with the chief medic's shed tail in tow. She wanted to make sure no one would damage it in anyway. She knew that once Pururu had snapped out of it, she would want to keep her tail as a sort of memento. Kind of like saving the first tooth you lose.

Once back into the safe haven of her room, she found her sister sat on her bed in tears.

"Ch-Chiroro! Chiroro!" she cried as she somehow launched herself all the way from the bed to her sister and catching her in a bear hug.

"I'm s-so sorry f-for yelling at you a-and being mean to you b-before… i-it was uncalled for… can you f-forgive me?" she spluttered, clinging to her sister as if letting her go would cause her to evaporate into thin air.

"It's alright, Karara" she found herself saying, despite the fact that she was still pretty hurt by it all.

"L-look… I'll go get us some dinner… you stay here… o-ok?" Karara suggested.

Chiroro nodded, thankful that she would get to eat out of Pururu's line of fire.

After eating together, Chiroro withstood Karara's onslaught of hugs and apologies before suggesting that getting an early night would be a good idea. She gently tucked Pururu's tail between the folds of a napkin she had saved from dinner and sat it on her bedside table, before curling up on her bed to finally get some shut eye.

She could have sworn she heard Karara ask her something, but she was unconscious before she could register and properly answer it.

A/N

This chapter is so short and crap and stupid and GHEY. I actually had it written up yesterday, but couldn't find the motivation to type it up. This took so long to type up and edit and it still sucks ass, so for that I apologise XD This chapter was actually the second idea I had for this story (my story planning comes to me in little scenarios when I least expect it XD) and it did seem much longer in my head, so I was forced to use one of my back up plot devices (Pururu growing old) to make the chapter longer than 1000 words XD (its only about 2700 words now D'X)

I am aware that earth tadpole's tails don't just fall off when they metamorphosise, but this is one of my keronian head canons so I decided to go with it anyway XD

I know exactly what's gonna happen next chapter (it was my third idea for the story. The first idea will ironically be in one of the last chapters XD) so I shouldn't have too much trouble writing it up, but don't get ur hopes up XD

Long A/N is long XD