Chapter Four - Remember
LATE SEPTEMBER, 1945
The American Commander talked with one supposedly of divine birth like he was talking to a peer. That ruler's aides, rankled at this treatment, were only partly comforted when they were told that General MacArthur spoke to President Truman in that same tone of voice.
"No, Your Majesty. You taking responsibility for the war and its crimes would remove the central figure this land needs to bring itself back."
Arguing with MacArthur may have been beyond the powers of Amataresu herself, so her descendant many times removed certainly had no chance at all.
"The reason I asked you here is that some diehards in remote locations still refuse to obey your surrender. We would like to request that specialized messages be recorded to urge them to at last lay down their arms and come home."
Hirohito, also called Showa, saw as his chief aide was informed by their translator and responded forcefully on his behalf, if without his direct input.
"The Emperor cannot be held responsible for stupid rogues who are too insensate to accede to reality."
The General sported a confident smile.
"Perhaps this young man can change your minds about that."
The small facility had been hastily erected, in the kind of hurry only MacArthur could demand and have it done almost just by speaking it. Japanese people who were protected from assault by American soldiers by MacArthur's own orders were instead assaulted by the noise of hammers and nails and wood. Some were heard to say that they would rather be punched out, for at least then you got some sleep.
"Our young friend here is the only survivor of a late-hour kamikaze raid. His plane landed intact and is now on its way to a museum in California. He was luckier than his squadmates, not so lucky as his plane."
Awa Urashima was a man destroyed, in large part by his own hubris. Now, he thought, his destruction was complete. In the eyes of his Emperor, he was a living symbol of a nation brought low. Forgetting several levels of protocol, he looked Hirohito in the eye and spoke. He could not, he reasoned, be any more condemned.
"I should have died in your holy name."
Several other levels of protocol met their end when the man for whom these words were intended spoke back without an intermediary.
"There has been enough death, young man. In my name, I charge you with the task of living a life and helping our humbled nation to rebuild. Will you honor my wishes?"
The response left Urashima's lips without hesitation.
"Hai!"
It was only after the party left that he considered that he would now have no choice but to live up to this oath. Heaven might someday forgive his one insult, or at least such had happened in legend. But two such slights? Bitter and depressed-not to mention self-centered-he might be, but he just wasn't that stupid.
"So I will live. Sergeant MacDougal?"
"No, Urashima-I will not conveniently forget to set the safety on my pistol. I told you that already."
"It's not that. Now that I have served my purpose, what is to become of me?"
MacDougal shrugged.
"Well, you're not a prisoner anymore-no one is, except for war criminals. But you're still busted up worse than a man should ever be, even if you do heal like a lizard. So we're working on setting you up at a hospital your people set up for war wounded. So far, they won't take you, and neither will anyone else."
"Because of my disgrace?"
"That's part of it. But folks-by that I mean all folks-are funny. It's like it's not victory or defeat, but war itself they try to forget. Resilient folk out here, I'll give them that. They want to move on, and you are a symbol of something that shouldn't have happened and also something that just didn't work."
Urashima felt a sense of foreboding.
"Then people are telling themselves a story. War happened. And it stinks. It isn't fun, or an adventure, and you don't go to Heaven just for being in it. I wish I had known that. But I was so fixated on making my way to that celestial entrance, I forgot that dreams need a dreamer worthy of them."
MacDougal saw his superior gesturing to him.
"You'll get there. Just four weeks ago, you wouldn't even admit you spoke English, and I was Dog to hear you tell it. Be right back."
Urashima saw MacDougal walk away and then saw him walk back with a second figure in tow.
"Urashima-San? You are in luck. This little lady here is the Chief Nurse at the hospital we picked out for you. She just argued to get you in-with some strings attached. Awa Urashima-"
The wounded man's vision looked two heads below MacDougal.
"-meet Hinata-errr-Ma'am?"
The girl smiled.
"My name is Hinata Urashima-for you, Awa, must agree to be my legal guardian. The hospital wishes me to keep my position, and yet needs to have the permission of my next of kin-which you will give-along with maintenance work, once you are well."
Urashima had gone from cruel jerk to sarcastic whipped fool. His evolution was newborn, and yet it had finally begun. Besides, he needed a place to stay while he healed. He dismissively acknowledged his charge and champion.
"Hello, Little Woman."
Hinata nodded, matching him snark for snark.
"Hello, Big Man."
It was the classic story of the ages. Immortal cursed with agelessness meets Immortal cursed with invulnerability.
Okay, so it's really kinda weird. This is Love Hina, after all.
LATE DECEMBER, 2001
THE PRIVATE JOURNAL OF MUTSUMI OTOHIME
I've barely kept a proper record since that day. It happened half a world away to just one city, but the feelings are almost just as raw now.
9/12/01
Shinobu came home with her friend Amy. The girl was said to resemble her distant cousin, the actress who had played Nellie Oleson on Little House On The Prairie. This was hard to see through her tears.
"Kei-Sempai, may she sleep in my room for a few nights?"
If refusing Shinobu anything (except that one thing) was ever in Keitaro's DNA, it was still not in evidence then.
"Of course, Shinobu. But what happened?"
Mitsu gently guided the girl to Room 201 as Shinobu watched.
"They've confirmed that her mother was on a high-story floor in the South Tower five minutes before the collapse. Her father may have been stuck in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike-or is it Parkway? In any event, nothing of him has been confirmed yet."
Naru, who in about fifteen minutes would call her sister Mei for no good reason, shuddered openly.
"We should tell her landlady she's staying here."
Shinobu shook her head.
"Her landlady works for the same investment firm, and is a cousin to a colleague of her parents. He was heard on the same phone call as Amy's mother. Her landlady has taken the first flight out to learn his fate and work out of the firm's branch office in New Rochelle. Amy-San kept herself together just long enough to arrange for her to stay with her former dance instructor, a Mrs. Petrie, who lives there. Amy-San currently has-"
Shinobu broke down in tears of her own, and ran into the arms of the one she loved best of all.
"Oh, Sempai-she has no one and no place to stay!"
Kei held her and offered comforting words.
"She has you, and she has this place. Would you like to take over my old room, Shin-Chan? It's big enough for two girls, or at least it should be."
Naru saw Mitsu come back down. No one noticed Mutsumi, who seemed to be in a trance, albeit not at all a peaceful one.
"I think that's a great idea-provided you clear your porn stash out first."
Every girl except Naru started pulling nervously on their collars. Kei shrugged.
"I think that won't be a problem. It's already been distributed, so to speak."
JOURNAL
Normally, no comment seems out of place in our lives. But in these days, the world itself seems out of place. My grandmother said that she saw in a vision that a crystal of great evil had been stored in a locker in the Trade Center, yet it had not been the cause of the attack. I asked her what the cause was. She said the cause was the same as ever : fools trying to impress the Heavens by undoing Heaven's work, and likely wondering why they ended up in Hell thereafter.
My grandmothers are of my blood and my heart. I have a third grandmother-or at least I used to. I could sense great things the day I met Kei and Naru, even as a child. I could sense when they met up again, and when they first decided to make love. Behind it all, sometimes literally, was the vital life-force of Grandma Hina. But I now cannot sense her at all. My own grandmother said that we sense when those we love enter this world, and we sense their absence once they are gone from it.
She said something else, but my mind won't permit me to remember it. These days have not been conducive to this.
9/26/01
Mitsu kissed a man who would never want her in that way, but who had been a good friend.
"Keep yourself-you know."
"I always do, Mitsu. Most of my unit knows, anyway, but they need a sharpshooter. Especially now. I want UBL's head to become a fine mist in my scope."
The household saluted the departing US Marine, bound for a mountainous land that historically had proven impossible to occupy or hold for any real length of time. Su looked at Mitsu, who was fighting back tears.
"What is it that his unit knows anyway, Mitsu?"
Su's query was answered by Motoko.
"Joseph is gay, Kaolla Su. If too many of the wrong people in his command circle learn this, he could be forcibly discharged."
The Molmolian Princess made a comment that, in other times, would have produced groans and shakes of the head.
"The Marines don't like it when you're happy?"
These were not other times, so Motoko cut her off.
"Yeah-that too."
Naru and Kei returned from the market, clothes torn and looking bloody-and in this case, both looked like another Naru of old had escaped Su's time machine and attacked them. A look from Kei told Shin to attend to Naru first. Mutsumi found she almost could not breathe. If either one of these people were to say the word, she would gladly spend her life with them. In fact, if both of them together asked the same thing, the result would also be the same. Seeing them like this, strange healing or no, was not something she cared for.
"Sempais-you were out getting curry and some hummus."
Naru wiped her bloody mouth and held her jaw.
"A group of thugs attacked Mister Harjiv. Asked him if he had plans to crash planes into Tokyo."
Motoko asked a loaded question less out of prejudice against one group than out of hope for another.
"Americans did this?"
This hope would be dashed. Naru winced from pain and grief.
"No-they were our own-God help us."
Mitsu shook her head.
"Mister Harjiv-he's Indian and a Buddhist."
Kei looked up at her with an eye partially shut.
"He was. Su?"
"Yes, Onii-Chan?"
"I am Onii-Chan and Manager and Landlord, right?"
"Of course."
"And you love me, right?"
She held him tighter than he liked, but the pain from keeping the mob from defiling their victim's body was greater still.
"Stupid Onii-Chan. I warred on my sisters to try and marry you."
He sat her down and held her hand.
"Then by all that, you must swear to not leave the Hinata-Sou's grounds for any reason until the New Year comes, unless it's to go directly to Molmol. Do you swear?"
"No shopping?"
"Su-"
"No arcade-no fried dough treats with powdered sugar?"
"Su-will you swear it?"
His eyes were glaring at an intensity that, three years gone, had been reserved for those once united in achieving his banishment.
"I-I swear it Onii-Chan! But why?"
He now held her in a breath-taking embrace.
"Because Onii-Chan loves you and would never forgive himself if these dark days brought you to harm."
"Th-Thank you, Onii-Chan. But I'll go crazy locked up here."
A common thought ran through the room.
You and everyone else here.
"Well, I'll need you to teach me all you know about physics-Onii-Chan needs tutoring, okay?"
Su smiled in nearly ecstatic joy at the mere thought of being sensei to her beloved Onii-Chan. Almost everyone else considered the level of physics the genius girl transacted in, and wondered what the hell Kei was thinking.
JOURNAL
I always loved the parable about the three blind sages trying to describe the elephant, each only knowing it from what part they touched. But now we have an elephant in our house no one will touch. It is the subject of Grandma. Kei issued what I can only call an order that we not speak of it, and Auntie backed him up. Those two move with a searing unity when it suits them. I guess it maybe comes from being the only two of their kind. Normally, I'd make a joke about how that also leads to concern about their feelings for one another, but they are both so far shut down, I think we could find them in the onsen together and believe nothing happened.
It's not healthy for Kei, and it's not healthy for the baby Haruka is carrying. I felt it starved for affection, till I guided it to touch all our hearts, and know that love awaits it on its arrival-on her arrival. The little heart already wants to know all about her Uncle Kei. How odd that, just as Joseph's more homophobic comrades have more in common with him than the people they all protect, this unborn girl has more in common with her uncle than she does with Seta, her father. But ties are forged in odd ways, and the red string has several shades.
And still I can neither recall what my grandmother told me, nor am I clear-headed enough to simply ask her.
10/31/01
The attaché from the American embassy quickly got to the point of his visit.
"First of all, let me thank you for your patience. Sorting through that Hell has taxed our ability to keep people informed like nothing we in this generation have known. We weren't delaying, or brushing you off. It's just that, until now, we had nothing to give you."
Haruka's stare was icy cold, but it was a cold felt by everyone-except Keitaro, generating arctic blasts of his own.
"What do you have now?"
The official pulled out some papers.
"The commuter plane registered to Urashima Hinata crashed into the New Jersey Palisades the morning of September 11th of this year. That we can tell, it was caught in the backwash of one of the hijacked jetliners that were used by Al Qaeda to destroy the Twin Towers. At this point, no remains identifiable as Mrs. Urashima have been found anywhere in, near or around the wreckage."
Keitaro seemed not to notice his fiancée's hand clenched over his. His voice was scarily close to a monotone.
"What remains have you found?"
Naru released his hand and realized that her man had caught an inference she had plainly missed. His grades, logically expected to suffer, had instead gone dramatically up. Their intimacy had been another story.
"Those remains, while definitely not those of your mother-"
Haruka cut him off.
"Grandmother. While her next of kin, I am her adopted daughter. Keitaro and I are both her grandchildren by blood."
Her grammar seemed stilted and archaic. This was not the woman who gladly squicked everyone present by openly flirting with her cousin and nephew. Seta and Sarah sat well away from her, feeling almost like there had been no marriage and no new family. The embassy man nodded.
"Thank you. That does clear a few things up. It seems that until recently, she was traveling in the company of another granddaughter, a Kanako Konno-Urashima."
Keitaro answered, again sounding less and less like a man who had ever known either nerves or confidence.
"My sister has recently reunited with her birth-mother. We have been unable to contact her."
This inference, Naru did catch.
"Wait-Kanako's birth-name was Konno? Mitsu?"
Mitsune shrugged.
"The Konnos adopted me-sort of. Kanako and I are half-sisters."
"Which you were going to tell us when?"
"Ummm-my business, Naru?"
"My future sister-in-law and best friend are half-sibs and its none of my business?"
"Give the lady a cigar-I mean the tobacco kind."
"You could sure use the other kind, huh? Or have you actually crossed that line yet?"
Mitsu's face twisted in rage.
"You said you wouldn't tell-"
Sarah nodded.
"She ratted out my birthmark, too-the dirty rat."
Shinobu looked at Mitsu.
"How dare you pose as this experienced mentor when you haven't gotten any more than I have?"
"Shinobu, not now!"
This time it was the embassy official who shouted.
"Yes, NOT NOW! Do you think you're the only people in this world, or even in Japan, or even this region or prefecture, to suffer a loss because of those lunatics? I have five other homes to get to this afternoon, including people whose daughter had run away and was living homeless and mentally ill in the Trade Center locker center. But there is an anomaly in this, and it needs to be addressed. The body found in that plane's wreckage we are not at liberty to identify. It was not the lady you are all so obviously grieving, that much I can say. But I need to ask a few questions."
The fractious family had just had a cultural button pushed. They had disgraced themselves in front of a stranger, a guest in their home who had come to aid them in their time of grief. There were no more outbursts.
"Thank you. Now, first, and I mean to cast no aspersions, because this one we are asking of literally everyone these events have hit. First-is there any possibility Mrs. Urashima had sympathy with the methods and goals of Al Qaeda and The Taliban?"
Haruka shook her head.
"None. My mother cried when the Taliban destroyed the giant Buddha statues a while ago. As a rule, she did not like fanatics of any stripe, and felt that much fundamentalist thought ends up in that direction by default."
The official shrugged.
"And yet she married one."
Naru looked at the man.
"What did you just say?"
Kei and Haruka looked at her, a woman they both loved now looked past and through.
"Our grandfather, Awa Urashima, was a failed Kamikaze candidate."
"We learned this almost two weeks ago."
Which, Naru quickly realized, was about the time the two shut down. She shook her head.
"Sir, some Japanese still glorify those sad young men. Most don't anymore. They weren't heroes. They were victims of a stupid policy that gained no ground except in the cemetery. Those words are not mine, either. They are-"
Naru choked.
"They were-Grandma's. She never liked fanatics. She always said they were so-"
Mitsu nodded.
"Unreliable. That was a very bad thing in Grandma's eyes. Being unreliable. Trust me on that."
JOURNAL
The gentleman left us, the identity of the dead one on Grandma's plane still a mystery, but at least her name had been cleared.
I was so scared at what came next. We could not survive another war. Very soon, the bombs would be dropping on Afghanistan. But Naru had already dropped one here.
11/01/01
With Mutsumi standing behind them, Naru and Shinobu stood sheepishly before the crisp, businesslike Mitsu Konno.
"Well?"
Shinobu shook her head.
"Go ahead and slap me. I can't even account for my mouth anym-OWWWW!"
Mitsu shrugged.
"Okay, you're forgiven. You, Mrs. Urashima?"
Naru couldn't meet her gaze.
"Don't call me that. Because he never will."
Finally, she met Mitsune's eyes with her own.
"He's left me, Mitsu! We're in the same bed, but I can't feel him. Forget sex, I can't feel anything of the jerk I fell for. He's gone, and it's making me insane, because his body is still here and moving around-but not for me..."
The four women walked into Mitsu's room, and she held Naru.
"I guess it's better that everyone knows. I've ditched old Kitsune and her life of lies, so why not ditch the final one?"
Naru shook her head.
"No! I loved Kitsune. We all did. You can't just put her aside."
"I'm Ryobo now, Naru-chan. Kitsune is another person, and she is not here. As far as I'm concerned, she's sleeping it all off somewhere, and she can sleep. I have promises to keep."
Shin sniffed.
"Sempai Kei is gone, Kitsune's gone, I can barely recognize myself-what happened to the world we knew?"
Mutsumi chimed in.
"I swear that I could feel the wheel of life turn our way."
Before Mitsu could again respond with her newfound maturity, Motoko walked in, her robes open and her body quite exposed.
"Urashima beat me. It wasn't even hard for him. My every movement, no matter how well planned and struck, turned out to be part of his extended plan to reach the tie on my robes. I even pulled away at the last second, but his finger was already snagged-and-oh well."
Motoko moved to leave, and Naru shrugged.
"You're the one who stopped wearing a body wrap, and now you're going to pound him for seeing what you offered up?"
"Narusegawa-he's seen me naked. He's seen all of us naked. I think he knows our private parts better than his own, possibly. Don't you get it? I still want to marry the man, so his seeing my body is not a concern, except for how it might upset you. Naked I can handle."
Motoko turned back, teeth gritted.
"But that delicious novice runt beat me. So I go not to pound him, but to practice."
Naru grabbed at her head.
"Straight Top-Ranks in school, and now he's beating Motoko and not falling apart to see her body. How is he doing all this? And how do we get our sweet struggling nerve-wracked boy back? How do I get him back?"
As they all left Mitsu's room, Mutsumi pulled her oldest friend aside.
"I might know a way. If you're willing to do..."
"Anything! I'll do anything!"
Mutsumi shook her head.
"Well, we'll put that to the test, won't we?"
"So test me."
Mutsumi held Naru's head-and kissed her full on the lips.
"I have always loved the both of you. Our common love of each other and him can bring him out, I'm sure of it."
Naru gave a ringing and enthusiastic endorsement of this wild scheme.
Which is to say, she fainted.
JOURNAL
I really am completely in love with the both of them, but even in that, it's complicated. I love each of them, and I love both of them together. I had thoughts of being with either of them as they figured things out, but I had forgotten the intensity of their relationship. There's a lot of room in their hearts, bless them, but not so much in their bedroom. I wouldn't even call this a case of trying to talk a conservative couple into a so-called 'threesome'.
It's instead a case of two people who have been one for a very long time trying to let anyone else in. Am I using this crisis to gain from them what they were unwilling to give normally?
I don't much care for the answer. If I am some sort of airhead, it still wouldn't be hard to figure out. But my dream deserves to come true-and if I can rescue their love in the process, I can live with impure motives.
I am at spiritual balance, and I am surrounded by the ones I love best of all, and I feel the light in all things.
But at the thought of sharing their bed, I am a teen again, and I am scared I'll screw it up.
12/01/2001
The reaction promised by the American President while at the site already called Ground Zero was in full force, and a corrupt government in Afghanistan was soon to fall-to be replaced by what, is hard to say, and will not be covered here. Yet that war would travel to the small hotel, now a girls' dorm, so it should be noted.
After a month of hellish indecision, Naru Narusegawa invited a friend to become much more, both to herself and to her man. That door closed on three people who had played together before, and now would again.
A girl smart enough to know better invited a nervous young man to her room, with both promising things wouldn't go too far. They wouldn't, but not because the two were aiming to be careful.
A woman who now prided herself on industrious and control read and read and read a short terse telegram, trying to parse it for any instance of code-talking. Having found none, she felt her rage build until it threatened to shatter her.
A man who was the brother of the woman playing with her two friends found that his warrior girlfriend outclassed him in every way there was to be outclassed. Her awkward statement about her former crush being able to best her helped things not at all.
A girl who had built one of creation's wonders felt cold and alone. This was worse than the last time, she told herself, and that last time had not been so long ago. Grieving and wishing a distraction, she arranged a journey over the phone that would be one of the more memorable ones the group ever took-and yes, they would be united again by that point.
But that point was not yet, and the separate threads of a time of hurt were about to converge.
Not looking at all satisfied, Mutsumi departed Naru's room, only to see Mitsune waiting for her.
"Got in through the back door, huh?"
"Not-not now, Mitsune."
"You know, most of us decided to respect Kei and Naru's choice, not try to get in-between them anymore. You? You actually got in-between them-literally. Was she as good as him? How is it, always having a fallback sex when one doesn't work out? Do people like you carry the whole phone book with you, just to save time?"
The woman who usually defined gentleness pointed at her friend.
"Back off. I don't have time for this."
Mitsune regarded her.
"Their scents-both individually, and as a couple-they're all over you-Mutsu, how could you?"
"Even if I had to explain myself to you, Mitsu-I still wouldn't. Now please let me-"
Their argument was cut off by another spilling out of Shinobu's room.
"When were you going to let me know about this?"
"If I had known you were this intrusive, I would never have..."
Mitsu snapped her fingers.
"Shinobu! What is Arlo-San doing in your room? I promised your father he would never be in there."
Shinobu looked sheepish, but not cowed.
"I wanted to be with him. We weren't going that far. Besides, with all of you lately, I have no one to talk to."
"Oh, so you were only talking in there?"
"Mitsu, you're over blowing this-errr-yeah. Besides, I don't date boys who wear more makeup than me!"
"That is low!"
Arlo pointed at his girlfriend.
"I told you-I had some scratches from the kitchen, and vainly tried to cover them up. That's all."
Shinobu wiped away some makeup on his left cheek, revealing a large but healing gash.
"That-is not from working in the kitchen. Are you getting into gang-fights at school?"
"You are not my mother, Shinobu."
Mitsu grabbed his face and studied the scars.
"But she would have seen these by now, wouldn't she? Alice-San's not dumb."
"Let go!"
Mitsu shook her head.
"You couldn't get away with makeup in a sweaty kitchen. Arlo-San, Auntie told me that Alice-San sometimes has quite a temper. Particularly when the subject of your biological father comes up."
Arlo closed his eyes and was silent, till his head bowed down.
"I should go. Mitsu-Ryobo-San, I apologize for breaking your rules-"
Shinobu stopped him.
"NO! Is Alice-San the one hurting you? Your own mother?"
He did not open his eyes.
"Shin-Chan, what do you want me to say? Or do?"
"Man up and tell her to stop!"
He pushed past all of them and was on the stairs.
"I've discovered you ladies are really big on two things : Telling us guys to man up and then crying foul if we keep you from acting like Neanderthals. Kei-Sempai may have discovered some secret to dealing with all this-but I don't know it. Goodbye, Shin-chan-I wasn't trying to hurt you. But I won't see my mother led off because my face resembles that of the man who hurt her worst of all."
"Don't you walk away, you-"
Mitsu stepped in front of her.
"Don't you dare think about doing anything but going back to your room!"
"You're not my mother, Mitsu-then again, you're not anybody's mother, are you?"
"You've walked that line once too often, Missy, and now-"
But if anyone imagined the night would contain only two running arguments, they were to be sadly mistaken.
"You said you were going to keep that low-level and friendly!"
"At my level, that was both!"
"Coulda fooled me, Lady-you did fool my sore arm."
"I told you that you don't have to compete at Urashima's level."
Koichi was down the stairs before he could be blocked.
"Not a mistake I'll make again. I mean, dude has his own all-ages harem. What's the point in competing with that?"
But if some of the fuel for the fire was gone and away, there were still reserves, some of which emerged from her bedroom.
"What the hell are you doing out here? I need to sleep."
Naru glared at the others, but not one of them shrank from her gaze. Mitsu took point.
"So now that you've ridden both tracks, Naru, how is switching off?"
Naru stopped and stared at her.
"Was that about trains or sex?"
"So I like euphemisms-just like you like being adventurous."
Mutsumi still felt badly out of sorts.
"Just so long as it isn't with you, Mitsune. In the bedroom, you need someone you can rely on."
Mutsumi was already about to apologize when a growl and then a roar erupted from Mitsu's throat. Her eyes pulled back, and her face seemed to distend, and then after that her body, as it also grew fur all over it. The other girls stared dumbly as yesterday's trickster and today's model for industrious sobriety became tonight's wolf. It growled at all of them, stopping in particular on Shinobu, who had upset her earlier. The younger girl burst into tears.
"Mitsu, nothing happened!"
The wolf who had been Mitsune turned and looked at Naru and Mutsumi.
"Mitsu, we both tried, but Kei lay there like a lump till we gave up. Our big adventure was a big blow-out. My man-our man still isn't around yet."
Mutsumi nodded.
"My dream of being with them hit the shores of reality."
The wolf found someone had jumped on it-not for pummeling, but for hugging.
"Mitsu, I'm sorry-but I've lost Kei, and maybe Arlo tonight too-please don't go away."
The sound of Shinobu's tears caused a woman to re-emerge from within a wolf, and a man to emerge from more than just his room.
"Don't cry, kid-it's been rough-and I still don't have the kind of self-control I'd like."
"Did I hear Shinobu crying out here-and why do I feel so weird?"
Every woman present ran and hugged Keitaro, who still looked confused.
"Ummm-was I off somewhere? I feel like I've been away."
Naru seized and kissed him.
"Kei, what happened?"
He shook his head.
"I dunno. I remember somebody saying how Granpa was a kamikaze, and Auntie crying-she never cries, wow-and how we both felt like he was no better than the maniacs back on September 11th-but there was more-why can't I remember?"
Mutsumi walked up and hugged him.
"It was a lot to deal with-on top of everything else. You and Auntie just kind of zoned out and stayed there."
Shinobu embraced him next.
"As long as you're back."
Kei shook his head.
"But I feel like I went away for a reason-what was it?"
Su came bounding up the stairs.
"Onii-Chan, it's time for your physics lessons!"
Kei winced.
"Sorry, Su-we'll start those in a few days."
"Days? You've been taking the lessons for more than a few weeks, now. You even have this file of work saved up."
She handed him a CD-Rom. Kei stared at it in utter confusion.
"Naru? Everyone? I'm so sorry. The last thing I wanted to do was make this time any more confusing or hurtful."
Naru looked at him.
"You want forgiveness? Get back in there."
The restored couple moved to make up for lost time. Shinobu threw on her jacket.
"I have to talk to Arlo. I can't let it end like this."
Motoko sighed.
"Koichi has the overnight. But I too will not let this argument stand for long."
That left Mutsumi and Mitsune.
"For a sweet gentle airhead, you sure know how to throw a verbal right cross."
Mutsumi nodded.
"Thanks-Mitsu-"
"Not now, Mutsu-kay?"
"Yes, but-"
Mitsune waved her hand in a cutting motion in front of her.
"No. We're all sorry, we're all tired, and things just got bad. Alright?"
"Not alright. There's two things you're not thinking through."
Mitsu sighed.
"Being which?"
Mutsumi listed these.
"One-everyone saw you change into a wolf. They're going to learn your secret."
"Well, I don't have many secrets left anymore, anyway. What's two?"
Mutsumi moved them both downstairs.
"Two-your real Mom's a Kitsune spirit, right?"
"Right."
"Then-if you're a real kitsune-why did you change into a wolf?"
A good question to which the foxy lady had no answer at all.
JOURNAL
Shinobu agreed to stay out of Arlo's relationship with his mother-unless she really hurt him, and then all bets are off. Motoko and Koichi have elected to replace combat practice with miniature golf. Mitsu has so far dodged all questions concerning her transformation. Kei still can't figure out what he did with Su's lessons, and Naru still can't get enough of him.
I wish I could have been with them. It's still my dream. But as Shin-Chan and Arlo make Christmas Eve dinner, now all I dream of is either peace-or the lovably fun chaos that our lives once knew.
Oh, Kami, as the New Year approaches, show us signs that the warm chaos of the Hinata-Sou will once again replace the actions of fanatics and losers in shaping our lives.
I need that to happen. We all do.
JANUARY 2ND, 2002
The prayers of Mutsumi Otohime would be answered, but Kami takes his own path in these things.
1
Naru saw the letter from the Japanese government.
"Is that it, then?"
Kei closed his eyes.
"Yeah. Auntie's the next of kin, so she'll have to decide. But as of right now, the government won't stop us if we want to declare Grandma-"
He tore the letter up.
"I'm not ready to say it. I can't find my sister, and my parents have accepted this too easily. But I can't let this be real for right now-I can't let this stand-NARU!"
She jumped, and he grabbed the CD-ROM, inserting it into her laptop computer.
"Oh, My God. It's all here."
Naru looked at the readout, and her eyes went wide when she saw the real reason her man went away the way he did.
"Can this work?"
Kei had no answer.
2
Across town, Shinobu waited in a clinic for test results.
No, not *those* test results.
"Thanks for waiting, Shin-chan."
She glared up at him.
"If your cheek didn't have a gash already, I'd slap you."
"Shin, she's a good person."
Shinobu caressed his cheek near the wound.
"Yes, she is. But she has a very poor habit I will no longer tolerate."
3
As a tired man emerged from keeping Tokyo's buildings with heat and ventilation on a consistent basis, he was met by a woman he had come to like a great deal.
"Hey, Lady. I'm a little too tired to spar, ya know?"
"Koichi? I have news. Despite my best efforts at being careful-"
"No-Motoko, don't say it!"
She nodded.
"Despite all my and our vast precautions-"
She began to tear up.
"My sister found out about us and wants to meet you."
They resigned themselves to an inescapable fate.
4
Back at the Hinata-Sou, Mutsumi felt something shift. Something welcome.
"Of course!"
As Kei, Naru, Motoko, Shinobu and guests came in, three oddities emerged that would define part of a new year.
"Onii-Chan? My time machine is acting funny. Maybe I better finally take it apart."
Naru stopped her.
"Su? It's all right. We'll do that in a few months. We think it's perfectly safe. Right, Kei?"
"That's right-our Su invented it, so how could it be bad?"
She was held and hugged inbetween them, and all seemed right.
That is to say, it seemed right.
5
Naru saw Haruka walk in.
"Auntie? Where's Seta?"
Haruka just chuckled.
"Still sporting that crush, eh kid? Nah, haven't heard from him lately. I think he might have taken in Tara MacDougal's daughter. Have to check with him. Hey, shouldn't you be in cram school?"
"Ummm-no. I'm in Todai. So's Kei and Mutsumi. Motoko's in cram school."
She laughed again.
"Yeah, right. You two still have to pass your entrance exams, remember? But I'll lay odds 1999 is your year. So-"
Haruka Seta said words that left them all fearful for her.
"Anybody get a call from Grandma?"
6
Upstairs, Mitsu heard a noise from her old room.
"Hey! Who's in there? Arlo-that better not be you! Ryobo coming through, so get dressed quick!"
Pushing her way in, Mitsu saw walls lined with beer cans and bottles, and a room that looked like it had never ever been cleaned. Under the futon mattress was a figure. She pulled it away to reveal the last person she expected to see.
"You?"
She was hung over, barely dressed, and laughing at the seriously serious House Mother.
"Yeah, me. Who'd ya expect? Face front, Anal Retentive Annie-"
Mitsune felt like a mirror had come to life-an old mirror.
"-'Cause Kitsune is back in town!"
7
Mutsumi suddenly remembered all of what her grandmother had said.
*If we remain aware, and put past the distractions of a modern world, we sense when those we love enter this world, we sense when they leave it, and we sense their absence once they are gone from it.*
And she smiled a very broad, very joyous smile. For her prayers on several levels had been answered in a good way.
*Hinata Urashima had a very potent lifeforce. I can feel its absence from the world-but I never felt her leave it !*
It was only hope, but she decided she would gladly take it.
SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2001
Fourteen seconds remained until impact. Hinata Urashima felt the world grow odd around her. One second before, she thought she felt and heard her beloved Awa. Now, though, she looked about her, ignoring the mortal peril ahead.
"Is someone watching me?"
Her time had passed, and it had not yet come.