Chapter Eight - Secrets, Origins, and The Hinata Shuffle
APRIL 15TH, 2002 - MAHATUAK, MASSACHUSETTS
For Naru Narusegawa, the past year had seen the incidence of accidental public strippings and over-the-top retaliation for the same drop off to almost nothing. Now, said stripping occurred in private, and retaliation played a role in private as well, one that was deliberately not talked about when it was realized Shinobu was in the same room. Of late, though, she got that anyway, and blushed just as sweetly as she once had over the mere sighting of bare flesh. Motoko did not reprimand, nor Mitsune joke about this : Very, very frankly they wanted them some, even if their old pounding sheet had chosen another's bed. Mutusmi's thoughts were in the same vein, if a bit more ethereal, while Su's as ever were wild and hard to pin down, save that they were almost omnivorously loving towards her family.
But for Naru, despite all this settling in, life with her Kei would never be boring.
"He asked you what?"
Keitaro still seemed just as surprised as her.
"Keith asked me to stay on here. Says the place could use an able assistant manager."
Keith Ulster, Kei's counterpart at the Hilda Inn, had shown them all great hospitality, and the Hinata-Sou residents (perhaps former residents, they knew) had gladly thrown in for cleaning and maintenance work, each keeping to their own counterparts as they went. Like so many things in their lives, it had been equal measures exciting and strange.
"So what did you tell him?"
Keitaro seemed uncertain. Not the inherent and infuriating levels of uncertainty that were as much an obstacle as Naru's defensiveness, but still something fairly deep.
"Well, first I told him I have to discuss it with you before I even seriously contemplate it."
"Good way to wimp out."
"Hey! So I'm not supposed to discuss it with you?"
She was caught in a bit of her own trap. While indecision on his part was still not welcomed by her, certainly his offering an answer without her at least in on it would not have gone well.
"Calm down. You are-but-you do need a job, and we all need a place to stay, if we want to be together."
His seeming indecision often came from seeing the consequences of possible actions all too clearly. Amped up to dangerous levels, this had given him the ability to calculate the angles in the effort to circumvent Grandma's death during September of last year. In normal circumstances, though, it could and had paralyzed him in more ways than one.
"Can we stay together? We two can do what we want. But asking Motoko or Mutsumi to be away from their families? Mitsu would snap up whatever they offered, and Su can probably get permission from her family. But...Shinobu?"
Naru again felt a twinge. Not from the fear that her man and their young friend would betray her trust, but from the tenderness of their relationship, a tenderness she feared had been lost to her when she chose her fists and sharp words over her heart.
"She could at least ask her family."
"Naru, her folks are not going to approve her moving to another continent. We had a dream, and we achieved it, and then, we traded it in to honor and restore the one we loved best of all. It's like the old stories - she came back wrong, or different. I can live with what it cost me - it's a little harder for what it cost all of us."
Naru, annoyed (or more so than usual) folded her arms.
"We all chose that cost. And she will change her mind."
Kei looked at her with a partway smile.
"This is the same woman who saw us getting married when we weren't even five."
Naru had a surprising counter.
"And wasn't that the wisest thing? How in the hell did she know all her plotting and scheming and 'why let them figure out this new puzzle for themselves?' instead of just letting us know certain things straight-up wasn't what kept us apart?"
"We-kept us apart."
"Yeah, but a little info would have gone a long way. Make no mistake, I love, worship and adore that woman only a little less than her grandson. But in showing proper respect and love, let us never mistake that for her always being right. Because she isn't!"
Lightning flared outside, and Naru glared.
"Same To You!"
Mitsu poked her head inside.
"Sorry-that was me. I used to have an easier time with hangovers. Then again, I never used to wait around for one before starting the next round. Ouuch."
Naru waited until they once again had relative privacy before speaking.
"You have to ask them, too. They're our sisters, and I won't ever make the mistake of thinking they don't all love you ever again."
"Ask them? Even if in some cases, staying with us is impossible?"
"Especially if it's impossible. The day you and Shinobu have to stop - whatever it is you have - I want a raincoat and galoshes at the ready, for you two crybabies."
"You wanna build my confidence any further?"
She gave him a peck on the cheek.
"The only time I ride you is when you don't even try. So try."
So he tried. With each one he had a quiet sit-down, beginning with the one who had done so much to earn his trust.
"Really? Wow, Kei-are we ready for this?"
Kei shook his head at Mitsu.
"Huh? Just like that?"
"Like I'd ditch either of you? And in favor of what? A family I have to set up an FAQ to explain?"
Kei recalled the group headache when Mitsu had tried to explain all that to them. But Mitsu was smiling.
"Besides, I'm actually writing in-between helping Kitty get her ledgers straight. Plus, Shinobu showed me some photos I took in Molmol. I may just end up as a words and pictures gal-maybe even a mangaka. Maybe I'll hire you!"
"I tried that once, remember? Akamatsu-San permabanned me from the industry-unless Lynn Okamoto orders take-out. Then I'm allowed to deliver."
He moved next to the one whose ferocity of seeming hatred once hid an even more fierce love.
"Tsuruko's pregnancy makes such a move impossible-but only for the present. I could rejoin you within a year."
"And do what, Motoko? I'm only going to be assistant manager here, with no ownership rights. I might be able to have Mitsu as my assistant. Naru for her part is fairly certain she can make Harvard in the fall. She has the grades."
The samurai nodded.
"No surprises there. From the Harvard of Japan to the Harvard of...the world. As for myself, Urashima? Molly assures me that an athlete of my skill could easily name my own price, sparring with those seeking Olympic Gold."
"But is that what you want?"
Grinning slyly, she put a finger under his chin.
"What I want has been claimed by my sister."
He flashed a Seta-smile that nearly bowled her over.
"What about Koichi?"
"He will visit his sister, and where we all stay, I cannot see Mutsumi ever leaving."
The girl who loved him with such fervor, she nearly alienated all her friends expressing it, was both easy to predict and very nearly impossible as well.
"Wouldn't this interfere with your cultural observation mission?"
She could never resist hugging him, so she didn't start then.
"Nope! What better way to observe Japanese than watching them in a kind of exile? Besides, Tirana and I are getting along now, and each of our missions will stand to benefit from our two groups interacting."
The hug grew ever tighter.
"Besides, I gave up on having you as my king. I will never let you go as my Onii-Chan."
Rather than feel awkward or make a snarky remark about her grip making him an Onee-Chan by accident, Kei returned the hug, and sat with this wild, tender creature for ten minutes before moving on.
He waited for Mutsumi to rouse from her meditation, including extra mantras taught her by Misty. The second most amazing woman he knew continued moving through emotions as sure-footedly as her physical movements were accident-prone. Her eyes snapped open, gained a brief look of annoyance. She mock-punched his face before kissing it.
"This is me, Kei-Chan. You have to ask where I belong?"
He smiled.
"Yes. The question is your right to hear. The answer I think even I can figure out beforehand."
The final one to be spoken to was the sturdiest of them, yet at times she could be like fragile crystal. Naru knew in her heart of hearts these two would never run around on her. The two were not so certain of themselves, but they were getting there. That, Kei reasoned, was why they hadn't ended up together. They had matured at almost exactly the same rate from the super-crybabies they had once been.
"Stay here? Sempai, that's such a big move. Is Sempai Naru for it?"
"Well, Shinobu, she's doing me the tremendous honor of letting me decide for us. I have to wonder what I did to upset her."
"Baka! She trusts you, and so do I."
"And what about your parents?"
"Well, I might really have to sell it, but think, Sempai. When was the last time I was back at home, or both of them together saw me? Besides, word has it they've gotten frisky in my absence. It was bad enough walking in on you and Sempai Naru. My parents getting intimate? Brrrrr! No thanks."
Kei brought up his next tack.
"And what about Arlo?"
Shinobu shrugged.
"He's been thinking of moving out on his own. If he came here, he'd be snapped up by any of ten restaurants, and that's just in Mahatuak."
From her pocketbook, she produced the Keitaro-Hunt hat and put it on him.
"Sempai will decide for us all, and I know he will choose wisely."
A small kiss followed.
"I gotta go-turns out Sherry is not so much dense as over-extended. I have to teach her how to have fun again."
Kei lay back on a very spacious couch-the Hilda Inn was just insanely large-and hoped that the faith Shinobu and the others placed in him was not misplaced.
THE HINATA-SOU
Haruka covered her ears.
"Mama, the baby can't sleep!"
Hinata sipped her tea amidst the loud noises as though she did so in perfect calm.
"The baby is not born yet."
"Yeah, well, it still can't sleep. Can't you cancel all this renovation?"
Hinata shrugged.
"It is already paid for. My former tenants' method of financial compensation for my pain and suffering."
Haruka had to shout to be heard.
"Mom, come stay with me and Sarah while all this is being done."
"Why would I? I must keep an eye on all these thieving contractors."
Haruka gave up something she would have vastly preferred not to.
"If you'll come, I promise not to rag you about Keitaro."
Hinata took on a very phony confused look.
"Is he-yes, that nephew of Seta's? You can talk about your nephew whenever you want, child. Why would I prevent you?"
Sarah burst in, her face red and flushed.
"Mom! Some of the contractors are asking how old I am."
"Kick them where it counts, kid."
"I did. They said they've built up a tolerance for it. Can we go before I'm a statistic?"
The pair (or was it trio?) left Hina to stew in the juices she tried hard to pretend weren't ready to boil over. The Hinata-Sou was being renewed around her, the grandiose ideas of Mitsune Konno hard at work.
But the memories of the woman the place was named for were permanent fixtures, and these extended back to the middle of the Nineteenth Century.
1852
Across the vast ocean, a man named Lincoln debated bitterly and without let to try and keep his divided house from fracturing. But in Japan, Keitaro Urashima took deliberate steps to shatter his house entirely.
"You dare to come back here?"
"It has been five years, Father. MacDougal-San is dead, and the navy he serves has long since departed our waters. I beg again that my willful behavior be forgiven. I forgot my place once, and lost it. I will not do so again."
The cold, hard man, always certain of his every last choice and his innate correctness in it, moved with force to mercifully crush yet another foolish dream.
"No. You will not do so again. For I will never permit you the chance. Resume your landless wanderings, child. Resume them, and vastly increase their diameter."
Her tears gave him no pause, and she was banished anew.
"Crybaby weakling."
1872
With each would-be employer, it was the same.
"You want me to hire you? A snip of a girl?"
"You look untrustworthy. How do I know you would not run off on me?"
"I will be watching you. Your every moment here will be a test."
And always, an hour later, she was thrown out in the company of three playful foxes.
"Sorry, Hinata-Chan!"
As she watched the vulpine spirits play, she shook her head.
"I thought tricksters were supposed to be clever!"
Clever enough to keep their favorite playmate unemployed.
1892
Hinata packed her things yet again. The distant cousin, many years her junior (though of course, you could never tell this by looking) was a woman she had called Auntie.
"Have you come to make sure I'm leaving?"
"Please don't be this way."
Hina let the woman see her tears.
"I am not the one at fault. I am the wronged party. But he is not being made to leave, or even apologize."
The former Auntie clearly felt horrible. Just not horrible enough to reverse her decision.
"As long as you are here, I cannot be first in the eyes of my own husband."
"And what makes you so certain that sending me away will change anything? A man of his sick appetites..."
A thunderous blow caught each cheek of the girl-who-was-not.
"You brought that sickness out in him!"
Hinata rose and caught each slapping hand, bending them back just hard enough to make her erstwhile hostess aware that she could bend them much harder than that, if she so chose.
"Keep telling yourself that, as he locates other girls in this area. We were happy once, we who had no one but each other. You had several men of either skill, means or decency seeking your hand. You chose him. Remember that, as you grow old and I stay as I am, both alone again, except that your loneliness will end one day."
Hinata left, wondering how long her kitsune-family would take to forgive her choice to stay there, and knowing she could only get so far before travel became too great an uncertainty that night. But she also knew that someone else would have calculated her departure and the distance she could make. This she used to her advantage.
"There you are, my little wanton. You should have let me talk to her first. I can always get her to do anything I want. Now, wake. It's time I touched you in that one special way that will make you a woman-"
His head rolled off into the rolled-up blankets before him. Hinata cleaned the black blade in the stream, and began a quest to restore it to where it belonged.
"I have been a woman for thirty years. I needed nothing of yours to accomplish this."
Auntie became a woman shunned by local residents whose crying daughters came forward. She died alone five years later, calling for Hinata to return.
1912
Hinata had rejoiced along with most of her countrymen-and countrywomen-seven years prior when the Russian Imperial Navy found itself no match for the emergent power of its Japanese counterpart. At last, it was Japan that walked in the light of respect and power. Even with much of the rest of the world poised on the brink of war, there was no chance the Western powers would dare try to roll over Japan the way they had decadent and decaying China. Japan's Emperor wore the title of living god on Earth. China's was said to be a small scared boy forced to accept a new name when his people overthrew him after a bloodline compromised by endless concubines and false men at last proved too weak to govern. Rome had fallen the same way. Hinata even knew his name-Romulus Augustulus. As for the world's other kings and queens? Britain's monarchs barely spoke to their children, and could only claim descent from Arthur if their intent was to make people laugh. Japan's star, like its sun, was rising.
"The Russians? They proved to be a great paper tiger. Now, the Americans are investing in a naval force worthy of the name. They're the ones to watch-and do more than watch, perhaps."
"Have you seen some of the geniuses emerging from our academies? They are born masters of strategy. Britain had best watch itself. When these young men come into their own, I'll wager there won't be a single possession in their British Empire that we can't take away, almost simply by deciding it's now ours."
"Break China? China broke itself. Oh, they can blame the Western folk, but let's face it. They were asking and begging to be broken. Mandate of Heaven? Hell, even Son-Goku didn't choose to deliberately piss in the Buddha's palm. But the place is too big to left flailing about freely. That may have to be addressed one day."
"That's a limited way of thinking. Our remote ancestors created all of civilization, remember. So anything that passes for civilization in the Pacific is naturally within our sphere of influence. What did Britain do with their own islands? What did the Moors do to the whole of Greater Araby? What did the Americans do when a whole continent was within their grasp? They all saw something they knew to be theirs by right, and they took it. When the weak sisters cried over it, the strong among them knew that was their cue to push forward even harder."
Hinata knew her homeland was becoming ever stronger, a force to truly be reckoned with. So as she served these increasingly wealthy, better-educated men their rice, meat (and sometimes cheese) as well as tea and sake, she could not quite peg why their words sounded so very ominous to her.
1932
It was a one-sided conversation, but to be fair, it likely would have been that in any event.
"I knew certain that, when your time came, you would not bother to have me informed. But you actually managed to shock me when you swore all our relations to silence as concerned all that, when it came to me. I didn't even know exactly when it happened, till my sister's great-grandchild spoke to me at school. I spoke about false ancestors of mine, so do not blame him. That was not a request. With what I now know, I could haunt even you."
Hinata tried not to let her bitterness bubble over. This was to prove impossible.
"What did you do to them all, old man? Why did only two of my siblings marry and have children? Did you ride them all with your harsh words and vile glares? Did you make them despair of any dream that wasn't one of your own grey dingy chalk drawings? I've come back here, now, not to beg you to lift my curse-that I will do someday by myself, and I know you would never lift it anyway of your own volition. No, I come now to say that I now realize why all the grand talk our leaders engage in brings me no joy, but only sorrow. For you see, Father, our nation has become a group of people who all talk and act-like you. I only pray that, when their reign is done, that Japan still endures."
"But I am not done. I am mindful of the old stories, and so I now curse you in turn : Should Keitaro Urashima ever walk the Earth anew, let him never walk with sureness of foot, nor speak with conviction or certainty, and let him be the brutalized plaything of others-when he is regarded at all. So come back, Father, if Hell will release you. But come back as demon, god, or ghoul, and you will walk as I have listed. My curse persists as long as yours does-and by that I mean your intent, not the curse itself."
A young boy ran up to her in the cemetery.
"My grandmother says that you are a fiend and should leave this place."
Hinata saw an old woman with a cane in the distance, shaking in nearly mortal terror.
"Tell me, boy-do you have an Onee-Chan?"
"Yes."
"Do you love and respect her?"
"Of course!"
Hinata pointed at the old woman.
"Then tell your grandmother to respect hers!"
The boy ran off in the purest terror imaginable. The old woman glared.
"You should not scare children!"
Hinata shook her head.
"Their elders should not use them to speak to others, when they are too cowardly to face their own kin. You're still a brat, Nura. Decades can't change that, or, it seems, seeking Father's favor, even when he is well past giving it."
With old wounds reopened and no healing having taken place, Hinata again left her one-time home, and began wandering a world at war.
1942
"This is not fair."
The great fox shook her graceful head.
"The Human War is becoming too intense, Hinata. We Kitsune are spirits, but we have enough about us that is Earthly that we need to withdraw before the worst of it hits. Just as it often has from the land, a great wrath shall visit our land twice - once as a light in the sky, the second time as a roar from the depths. Where we go-you may not follow."
One of the youngest fox-spirits snuggled against the Human she regarded as an older sister.
"But Hina-Nee keeps me out of trouble. I'd be lost without her."
"She will find her own kind once more."
Hina fell to her knees.
"Mother! Please-I hate wandering!"
"No, Hinata-you love wandering. You just hate having nowhere to stay, sometimes when you want to stop wandering. Build such a place up, and make it enduring. For your journey is far from done."
"Don't say such hateful things! I WANT TO DIE! I WANT TO GROW OLD AND..."
When she finished crying, Hina looked around and the kitsune were gone. They were not nearby, nor in any hiding spot she knew.
She knew well why Mother Fox had pulled her blood-family back. But it still felt like mortal and immortal both had no use for her.
"Please-I am so hungry. I will take whatever it is you can offer."
The old man wore a rice-bowl hat, was scraggly-looking and he smelled horrendous. Hina sighed.
"Nice try-but I can sniff out a god a mile away."
The 'peasant' assumed his true, muscular form, looking every inch champion and protector. His eyes flashed golden and silver, with lightning and thunder surrounding his chosen form, this one based on the Scottish Immortal known as Connor Macleod, who had once performed a service for this being.
"You're a pretty smart kid."
He looked directly at her.
"Too bad you've never once taken in the thought that being cursed with immortality isn't quite up there with, say, being slammed in-between revolving mountain ranges for all eternity."
She glared and he shrugged.
"Just sayin.'"
He left as suddenly as he came, and Hinata decided she would once again find a town just large enough to not have everyone immediately know everyone else.
1945
Once, a ruler was told that he could end a horrid and hateful war by showing his enemy that the price of fighting on was far too dear.
"Of course I will do this!" said the ruler. "This war must end. Young men, ours and theirs, are dying in numbers tearful to count."
The ruler was told that there would be a price for so decisive and quick an end to something so messy and grim. That price would be the lives of all those in two cities.
"My own cities?"
No, he was told. Two cities of the enemy will die by your hands. But enemy or friend, have no doubt that these lives will be known by all to have been ended at your command.
"I'm already responsible for more lives than I can think of. Let this be done, but if any man should say I did this awful thing lightly, only then shall I lash out in fury at them."
The ruler was as good as his word. His acts he defended in calm contemplation-but towards those who said those lives meant nothing to him, he corrected them with vigor.
The two cities did in fact die, and the war ended as foretold.
This was a true story, and so is this one. As a child, Hina inspected a wax sculpture an older cousin made by close candlelight. When the light drew too close, of course, it quickly ruined the exquisite miniature, and Hina was punished. She didn't mind-she was being punished for something she did, and understood why she was being punished-unlike some of her father's other rages.
The city she walked down into looked a lot like wax that had passed too close to a candle's flame. Some of the people looked the same. Others resembled the underside of a hot candle's dish, when it was permitted to burn the table and leave an outline of what the dish had looked like.
When Harry Truman made his awesome and awful choice, Hinata Urashima had been one of a handful to see the results on both occasions.
"You have won, Father. Your disobedient girl has been sent to Hell. I tried to leave it, but it will not leave me. So I will lay down with the dead and the ash till they choose to claim me at last."
But as she lay down in the burning nightmare, hands grabbed her up.
"I have a survivor-somehow this one isn't burned."
"She will have to be the only one we find. Nagasaki has been declared uninhabitable."
The nurse, never a friendly sort but dedicated to her craft, would soon realize just how extraordinary her charge was.
Elsewhere, a young man Hina had yet to meet made plans to fly a plane - exactly once.
Their meeting and union would be a momentous one, and has been spoken of already.
1956
An exhausting summer and fall were done with. People had lined up to stay, and the couple found no time for the aches and pains of their own bodies, and almost none for each other. The Hinata-Sou was a smashing success in its first year of operation. The grandchildren of the warmongers Hina had once served rice to now wanted to ease the aches and pains of Japan's burgeoning economic miracle.
"You did what?"
Hinata was enraged.
"We were finally going to relax-fix the place up as best we could from the profits."
"This-will bring in even more profits."
"One couple? Renting out the whole place?"
Awa shrugged.
"They are wealthy, powerful and value their privacy."
"You could have told me!"
"They were originally calling a hotel in Tokyo, and got our number instead. If I didn't move on it then and there..."
Hinata saw the figures. One couple paying a month's rent for every last room. Awa would have been a fool to let it pass.
"You realize we'll have to wait till early spring before we so much as lift a hammer?"
"Hina, it's early November. How much were we going to get done anyway? You made the choice to let the people keep staying here through Halloween."
He was right, but so was she. The choice between maintenance and hospitality would keep on in some fashion for another forty-six years.
"So when are they coming?"
A knock came at the front door. Hina glared. Awa covered his head.
"I had to move fast."
Hina opened the door. An American man and woman stood there. The man was strong-looking, though he appeared to have some kind of back-pain. The woman looked like graceful, quiet elegance, with expressive kind eyes. She spoke Japanese with very little trace of accent.
"Is this the Hinata-Sou? Oh, it's so lovely. It seems so peaceful, and quiet."
Hina could see this woman had the culture, breeding and taste to appreciate all the endless little touches she had put in.
"You should have seen us only a week or two ago. We welcome you and ask that you take what rooms you will, and make use of our onsen."
The woman nodded, and pointed to her husband.
"He has back pain, as you can see. He could really use that onsen. May I guide him to it?"
Hina shook her head.
"Let my man guide yours, while we two choose your room."
"Rooms."
Hina looked confused.
"His pain would give him trouble with that stairwell, while I can't sleep soundly on the ground floor."
Her husband nodded in agreement, his Japanese not as good as hers but still passable.
"Besides, we're both exhausted. We're with the Democratic Party, back home, and we campaigned extensively for Governor Stevenson to become President. Unfortunately for us, General Eisenhower still had a fondness for the job, so here we are. We don't exactly need to see each other for now."
The silent agreement of his wife to this statement bothered the Japanese couple, but Awa for his part merely helped the husband, Jack, outside to the relief of the spring waters. Jack's pain had left him unable to remove so much as a sock without aid.
"Thanks-kind of embarrassing."
Awa made a guess based on the man's age.
"A war wound?"
"Uhhh-yes. I commanded a PT boat. Mostly, I crashed it."
Awa made sure his guest had enough towels, including ones situated in case his head should fall back.
"I can go you one better. I crashed my plane-deliberately-and ended up missing two ships parked side by side."
Jack pointed, smiling.
"Sure! You're the comical Kamikaze! I visited your plane in Bakersfield-Sinatra showed it to me."
Awa was half-mortified that his disgrace was not yet forgotten, but another name surpassed his own.
"Sinatra? The-Sinatra?"
"There's only one, last I checked. Boy, I loved that movie. What did you think of it?"
"Which movie?"
Jack looked confused, then spoke up laughing.
"Why-The Comic Kamikaze, of course! Jerry Lewis played you! Didn't they have you sign anything, for them to be able to make it?"
Awa shook his head as he went back inside.
"I can be rather dense. But I think I would remember meeting Jerry Lewis."
The hosts made sure their guests were situated and comfortable in their rooms, where they even dined separately.
Hina and Awa sat in the onsen themselves, keeping a promise that their own aches and pains would not be put aside forever.
"Do they-do they even love each other?"
"It may just be-a marriage for appearances sake."
Two people who had spent all their lives alone sat and wondered how such a thing could be. It was then the thin walls of the Sou worked in their favor.
*You came down for me?*
*I do a lot of things for you. I'd like to know that I do something for you.*
*They all meant nothing.*
*Don't tell me what they don't mean. Tell me what I do mean to you.*
*You? In a life whose path my father decided on as he was burying my brother, you're the only thing that's real. Pain-pleasure-power-they all come and go. My Jackie stays. Stays even when I don't deserve it.*
The silence in their room was soon punctuated by light moans. Inspired by an enduring love that had apparently withstood many hits - Hina and Awa Urashima conceived the first of their two children that same evening.
As for the other couple? It is said that, for one brief shining moment, they led their nation from a place called Camelot.
1965
Hina knew that she was asking too much of her nine-year-old daughter on a regular basis.
"Your brother needs his nap. Set him down to it."
But their business was a glowing success, and they were always busy. Even the past several off-seasons had been warmer, with the Tea Room actually adding profits instead of merely covering the bills.
"The guests are complaining of dingy sheets. They don't much care about how you hate the smell of bleach."
They were wealthy, with the means to do a lot of things that they wished to. But who to leave a thriving concern with while they journeyed? Neither was close to their families. Besides, there were levels of wealth. That put-off vacation, when it came, would be the payoff to end all payoffs. So they resolved that, when their vacation fund matched their current overall savings all by itself, then and there would they plan it.
"The rule of Hammer is : When you see your father with a hammer in hand, let him concentrate on his work!"
She would make it up to the girl, and increasingly, her little brother, when the time came.
"Time enough for boys and friends? Do you see me with time enough to so much as wipe my forehead?"
That time would not come in the way she hoped.
1968
Hina swung her blade straight at her daughter's head.
"I waited these three months, then sent the Senator's family our condolences. For him to be killed like his brother was...shocking."
The girl blocked and battered her mother's defenses.
"There are those who say the two brothers and the black reverend were all victims of a conspiracy, perpetrated by ideological rivals."
A downward slice began arcing towards the smaller figure.
"The reverend is referred to as Doctor, child. Just like the late brothers are referred to by their titles."
Tarika stopped the arc with a leap that forced Hina back.
"I will remember, Mother. Will this week see a retreat from Sony, Mitsubishi or Panasonic employees?"
Hina sheathed her blade, and Tarika did the same.
"No. This week it will be the car-maker, Honda. Retreat. A bunch of fat executives who moan about how hard people on the assembly line work for them!"
"You don't like them?"
"I just said so, didn't I?"
Tarika turned away, started to walk off, and then turned back in fury.
"Then why have them here? All mortgages are paid. Our schools and tutors are paid through next year! We suffer neither killing heat or frigid cold in this lovely place. Why can't the off-season once and for all be the off-season?"
"We are saving for a time when perhaps things are not so good. Simple math, little one."
Tarika shook her head.
"Your simple math is subtracting all the joy from my life. I quit your employ. I will continue to see to it that my little brother, who hardly knows you, is cared for. I will clean our rooms. But I am no mule, and I am ending the multiplication of your list of endless projects."
"Go to your room!"
"Where would I go anyway? I have no friends. You've seen to that."
When Awa tried to hold her after this confrontation, Hina pushed him away-which told him to hold her all the closer.
1971
The girl looked at her mother.
"Do you hate me?"
Hina remembered a much lesser transgression that had cost a girl her home and family.
"No. But what made you believe that this was any sort of solution?"
Tarika held her stomach.
"I didn't plan it. I wanted to be as free and unbound by cares as you seemed shackled by them. Now I will have to really work hard."
Hina had no time machine. But she was determined to change history.
"We will all work hard. My first grandchild may have arrived a bit soon, but she is part of us."
"Mother, I can't ask..."
"No, you can't ask. You are underage. But I will give what help I can, as will your father and brother."
"But-but bookings for the off-season start soon."
"A wise woman once asked me why the off-season couldn't be just the off-season. It's time I heeded her."
As Tarika began to cry, Hina held her.
"Baka! You are not the first to do this. You're just the first to have me for a mother."
"I said so many horrible things."
"And had I not merely shrugged those things off as products of a wise mouth, we might not be here right now."
The girl thought of another prime culprit in this circumstance.
"What of Tenjin, Mother?"
Hina had gotten Awa out of the house before she broke the news. It had not gone well.
"Your father will leave something of him to bury, so that his child may visit the grave, my dear."
But by this point, Awa had calmed down to the point that taking the young fool apart was something to be done slowly, relished for each moment of pain he could deliver.
"And who will give you this magical job of yours?"
Tenjin nervously looked at Awa. Awa rolled his eyes.
"Do I look like a magician?"
"Sir-I didn't mean for this to happen."
Awa, once taken lightly, had developed a glare that could melt stone. Tenjin felt every bit of it.
"Did you use protection?"
"N-No."
"Then you meant for it to happen, whether you did or not. What in the hell do you have to offer my daughter except what she could have gotten from any fool?"
The boy seemed to gain resolve from Awa's anger.
"She and you will get the acknowledgement that I am not worth very much right now. I am a stupid member of a poor family, poor not merely in money but in how we treat each other and ourselves. You are furious with me-my father may be, but he stays drunk enough that I may never truly know. My mother is-you know all this. I am not worth much, Urashima-San. But I have the determination that I will be to my child what no one has been to me, and if I leave that child's side, it will be the will of Heaven, not any action of mine, that separates us. I will be better than what I am, and I will be better than that until the day comes when people will be shocked I come from the family I do."
Awa nodded.
"You remind me of myself at your age."
Tenjin's smile was erased a moment later.
"Don't smile-when I was your age, I was an IDIOT!"
As Tenjin crumpled, Awa made his offer.
"You will stay on a month-by-month basis. You will prove yourself on a daily one. If we eventually let you marry our daughter, and you run around on her in any sense of that phrase, I will fire you from here and give you my old job in the military."
Tenjin looked at him.
"But you were Kamikaze!"
Awa smiled.
"I'll make sure you do better than your father-in-law."
Tenjin bowed and made his agreement.
"Urashima-San-I can offer one thing, and I offer it freely. As I said, I come from a family whose name has no worth. I have no attachment to it."
Inside, the women awaited their men. Awa pointed.
"You two will be under a ton of rules. You won't like them. Too bad. They are the terms of giving what I know cannot work a chance to do just that. Prove me wrong."
With the aid of Awa's son Kenjiro, Tenjin began a long list of many detailed and tedious chores. Delighted that her life was not quite the ruin she feared, Tarika went to bed early. Hina heard of an offer made.
"He made such an offer himself?"
"Yeah. Impressed the hell out of me with it. Actually, the kid always impressed me-I just couldn't let him know it. His family are all scam artists and debt-skippers. But him, he'll work for our approval."
"But giving up his family name to take on that of his wife?"
With that hanging in the air, Awa went to see his little girl-his young woman.
"Papa, if this is the speech about how we won't be playing house, and how babies aren't dolls..."
He squeezed her cheek.
"Some babies are. I just wanted to ask what you were doing."
Tarika held up a pamphlet.
"A list of names. I can't figure out one if it should be a boy-but if it's a girl-I like this one..."
Awa read the name.
"Haruka."
1977
"Haruka!"
"Boom-Boom-BOOOOOM! That's how the Death Star blowed up, Mama!"
Tenjin calmed his wife.
"Let her be, Tari. That was one hell of a film. But that Han Solo actor? He'll never amount to anything."
She shrugged.
"Maybe-maybe not. But someone tell that whiny Mark Hamill never to try out as a Seiyu! Next time-we see it dubbed."
The car moved along the rainy roads back to the Hinata-Sou as they kept on their amateur review.
"I have to admit-I got kind of lost in that Force nonsense the old man was spouting off. And the Director must be a Kurosawa nut. Didn't he do that Fifties car movie?"
"Dunno-but you're right about that Force stuff. Almost as bad as that immortality bunk my folks told us."
"Thank God you said it and not me. I love those two, but this idea that you can survive anything by focusing on your life and flowing past bad moments-"
"But Papa! Haruka understood all of what Grandma said."
"Then you're smarter than we poor stupid adults, Haruka-what the hell-?"
"Haruka! Get down in the seat-cover yours-"
A young couple's determination to build a better future ended in the path of sudden rockslide and the inability to believe their own fabulous heritage. In the company of her son, Hina identified the bodies of her daughter and son-by-heart. Kenjiro came out holding his niece. Kenjiro's wife stayed at home with the broken-hearted Awa.
"Grandma?"
"Haruka-Chan?"
"Grandma, Haruka did everything you said about bad moments-but it only worked for me."
1978
The child only grew more depressed as the months since her parents' loss went by.
"It's not a medical analysis. But it's like she's lost the will to live."
Each grandparent took turns sleeping in her room. Visits from Uncle Kenjiro and Auntie seemed to help only a little. One day, Haruka took on a fever and the end seemed near.
"Granpa?"
"Yes, Ruka-Kun?"
"Haruka wants to not be sick, so she can play with Auntie's baby when it comes. But I feel so sleepy all the time."
Awa knew. If the fever could break, she had something to look forward to-a reason to live. But could she stay alive in her condition?
"Just sleep for now, little flower. Grandma and I need you here to help us."
As he slept, Awa saw his warplane before him. But the Rising Sun was gone from it, replaced by the emblem of the Hinata-Sou. His picture of the Emperor was gone, replaced by one of Haruka.
"I now know what I must do."
Waking, he felt Haruka's forehead. Her fever was beyond any alcohol or cold compress to reduce.
"No."
The wind blew in to the closed bedroom. From the shadows formed the last of all shadows.
*It is time, child. I regret-what?*
Awa wrapped his body around Haruka's, inside her blanket.
"Is that you, old friend?"
*That trick worked once, Urashima, when you saved Hina. The child is mine.*
"You'll have to go through me-and you can't. The Breath Of God itself cursed me never to die."
*Despite my grim station, I am an aspect of Heaven. I now withdraw your curse, and will claim you both.*
Death then took a man who lived a charmed life on the Divine Wind. Awa Urashima passed as all men eventually do.
"Well, you got me."
*And now the girl-I-what is this?*
Awa smiled.
"You came here to end a life. You've done so. So take me-I'm yours."
He shrugged.
"But my granddaughter will live, and her fever will break."
To his surprise, Death smiled.
*We all had a bet as to whether you'd reason this one out. But what about your wife?*
"She got by without me for almost a century. She may never forgive me, but she'll have this child and soon another grandchild to fill her life."
Death made Awa's plane appear.
*Ready to storm the gates of Heaven?*
Awa changed the plane into a train.
"You get to see more this way. Life is not lived by flying above it all. Why should death be any different?"
And as the inbound train met its destination, Awa saw a little boy with glasses waiting near the outbound track. They waved at each other.
"Take good care of them, boy."
In a life more or less realer, Hinata suppressed her immediate grief long enough to get her late husband off of their granddaughter. Her fever had broken, and her will to live back-along with her appetite.
"Granpa is tired, Ruka. I'll fix you something to eat after I get him to our room."
It was only many years later that college-age Haruka realized that her grandfather had died in her bed. Hina wept in her room as long as she dared, called her son and asked questions of the deceased.
"Did you trade yourself off so lightly? Were you so anxious to complete your final strafing run? Were you-"
She kissed his cooling cheeks and went off to make their granddaughter a large meal.
1979
"Why is your fist bloody?"
"It's not mine. Emily Kashigawa doesn't know when to shut up."
Hina pointed.
"Get in the car. Uncle and Auntie are waiting for us."
"Baked Goodies!"
Her smile was big and expressive, and her manner always different shades of loving but sarcastic. Her hair was worn in huge pigtails on either side, and she was always full of questions and manic energy. No girl remotely like her would ever be seen at the Hinata-Sou, ever again...except maybe those times it did.
"Hey! Is my new cousin there?"
"Hey is for horses."
"Only in English."
"You were using it in English. In its English connotation."
"Wow-OK. Is my new cousin there?"
"He will be. I believe they have chosen his name."
"Does he have a penis?"
"HARUKA! He's a boy!"
"Well, that's good. My romance magazines say cousins make good back-up in case you can't find a husband-and I'd insist on mine being fully equipped. Is it a big one? Because Uncle's is a bit petite."
When Hina glared, Haruka smiled even wider.
"Teacher says there isn't enough soap in the world to clean out my mouth."
"Perhaps soon-we will put that to the test."
The car ride soon showed one of its fringe benefits when Haruka fell asleep. Once inside her Uncle's home, she perked right up again. Bouncing, she picked her cousin up.
"The Baby! The Baby! The Baby! The-did you change him? Good-Baby!"
Haruka held her treasure close, while the adults spoke.
"Mom, we got him a name."
Kenjiro's wife Aya nodded.
"We couldn't decide, till we did some family research. It turns out there was a Hinata Urashima who was born sometime before 1850."
Hina almost spat out her tea.
"Do-tell. How-amazing. Dears-we have to talk-"
"In a minute, Mom. So-we learned her father's name, and so-"
Hinata pleaded silently, to no avail.
"Meet Keitaro Urashima!"
Aya pointed to where Haruka and the baby should have been.
"Where-are they?"
As the frantic parents ran out, Hinata remembered her curse.
"Little one-I am so sorry. Your path will be an interesting one-but I fear, never easy at all. Awa-spirits-do what you can for him, to help him survive an old idiot's foolishness."
Outside, the baby was being shown the world.
"You stick with Cousin Ruka, kid. I'll never steer you wrong-hey! This neighborhood doesn't look familiar at all. Well, we'll stop somewhere for crepes and cod, if we have to. Grandma will find us. You'll learn-Grandma can do anything. I guess we're still in Tokyo...or at least still in Kanto. Maybe we better take a train..."
It was, as the saying goes, a three-hour tour.
1984
"Hey, it's okay. My mom got knocked up with me, and she was four years younger than you. Things turned out all right."
The young woman now calling herself Alice Guthrie rolled her eyes.
"Thanks a lot, Haruka."
"I'm just saying."
Alice sighed. Haruka's mother had been supported by the child's father and all her own family. Alice had only Hinata and her family. A small hand touched her stomach.
"The baby's gonna be here soon, right, Alice-San?"
Alice helped the curious little one up.
"That's right, Kei-Kun. Will you help me by playing with it?"
"Gee, I dunno. I'm almost four, and this'd just be a baby. I'm getting too big to play with babies. Auntie Haruka, will you play with me?"
Alice smiled.
"Auntie?"
Haruka grumbled.
"You little MORON! I am not some old hag in a creaking chair! Stop calling me AUNTIE!"
The little boy wailed.
"! Auntie's angry with me!"
Just as suddenly, she held him.
"Crybaby-Jerk! I am not-just-not in front of people, alright?"
"Alright, Auntie."
Before another round could start, Alice grabbed her stomach.
"Haruka-get your grandmother-NOW!"
Hina was indeed summoned fast, and Alice helped to the room she was staying in. Haruka stayed upstairs, and so did most of the adults. Hina came down briefly, and saw her grandson was alone.
"Keitaro-go play outside, all right?"
"I wanna see the baby, Grandma."
"Later, I promise. You know-a couple staying here has a little girl about your age, and none of her brothers or sisters came with them. She has no one to play with."
"Wow-I better go play with her then, Grandma."
Keitaro headed down the steps to the sandbox. Indeed, a little girl with strange eyebrows was sitting there alone.
"Hi! My Grandma sent me down to play with you. Do you want to play with me? My name's Keitaro."
She smiled a very pretty smile.
"I'd like to play with you, Keitaro. My name's Mutsumi."
"Mutsumi? What's wrong with your chest?"
"Oh-these are my boobs."
"Can't you get shots for them?"
"My Mama says, someday I'll get lots of shots because of them."
"Well, what do you want to play?"
Mutsumi shook her head. For some reason, her chest kept on shaking for a second after that.
"I like how that does that."
"Keitaro, we have to wait till the sick girl is better. She came here to get well."
Near the edge of the sandbox was a younger girl lying down, looking feverish. Keitaro glanced over.
"Geez, she's almost a baby!"
When he looked near again, a fist lashed out and caught him in the face.
"OWWW! My nose! She knocked me across the sandbox!"
Mutsumi folded her arms.
"Naru! Keitaro came to play with us. Be Nice!"
The littler girl giggled.
"He funny!"
"Keitaro, let her hit you again!"
"Huh?"
"That's the first time I've seen her laugh. Laughing makes you get better!"
"It does? Well, let me see how she's...owwwww! Hey! Stop it! You dumb ba-oooohh-all right, I won't call you a baby!"
"Fall down again, Keitaro!"
Upstairs, while an exhausted Alice slept, Hina held the newborn boy his mother would name Arlo. She looked down and saw her grandson playing. That night, several of Alice's girlfriends would rent late summer rooms to be by and support the friend so badly treated by her family. Haruka would be about the task of corralling these girls-when she and her friends weren't learning how to 'party-hardy' at their feet. They would all repeat this for several summers until Hina, tired of the seasonal grind, decided on a fundamental change in the clientele of the Hinata-Sou.
"It would seem like many things have begun this day."
As the long day ended, Hina walked down to collect her grandson, only to hear him forcefully make a loud promise of some kind. Red lightning struck the annex.
"Curse or no curse, that boy knows how to call it down on himself. I believe we must obtain-a fox!"
1985
The kitsune assumed its Human form.
"Do you have any idea how hard it is to calm down the fates? They don't much like the Urashimas, Hina. You bunch are always with the curses and the challenges, and Jerry Lewis movies-and now you have kids challenging them directly?"
"The spirits do not like Jerry Lewis?"
"The Japanese ones don't. The French ones consider him a living god."
"Can you contain the chaos?"
"I already have. Can you-do for me?"
Hina rolled her eyes.
"Come on, Onee-Chan-you always took care of me. Eventually, you'll take in the other one, right?"
"The other one will be too powerful to not have guidance. As for this one-show her to me."
What looked like a small girl came out of the bush.
"Kanako-you'll be going with this lady. She's my sister-but you'll call her Grandma."
The girl shook her head.
"Mother is irresponsible."
The kitsune sniffed, shifted form and ran off. Hina knew how to prevent Kanako from doing the same.
"At this stage, you are too Human for her to care for. But I have a family that will love you. You will even have a big brother."
The girl walked along with Hina, but was quite defiant.
"I will hate him."
"No you-what are you doing?"
"Closing my eyes so you can't see me. I am a master of disguise."
"Maybe someday, child. Maybe someday."
1989
Hina had to concede, it was a friendly triangle, as far as these things went.
"It's a lovely meal, Mrs. Urashima."
The American, Tara MacDougal, was indeed the granddaughter of the Sam MacDougal she had known after World War Two, and the niece, many generations removed, of the Sam MacDougal whose tender friendship had gotten a little girl in trouble.
"The air by your onsen is so good for my lungs."
This girl's lungs needed no help, as she also appeared to be a distant relative of the Otohime family.
"All three of you appeared to enjoy the onsen last night, my dear. Especially Noriyama-sitting in-between the two of you-with part of him between both your-"
"Mom! We're not stuck in the hidebound past. We all enjoy each other's company, and we're not shy about it."
"Apparently."
The nervous eyes of the college trio centered on the old woman who had them all where the ladies had Seta the night before.
"Urashima-Dono? About-about the expedition?"
Haruka shot her man a glare that screamed 'Dork!', but Hina raised a calming hand and offered up even more calming words.
"I will finance your expedition. Provided your mind is on your work, and not the re-enactment of every ecchi film since the war ended."
Tara pointed to Seta.
"I wouldn't worry there, Ma'am. Once he's out and about with his beloved relics, the only ecchi thing he'll look at will be local versions of the Lady Godiva legend."
"Yes! The Turtle Civilization did have a version of it, only she had to ride bundled up and risk heat prostration. She lost so much weight sweating, her figure was ruined and her husband in horror reduced taxes in exchange for each peasant giving his lady a piece of cheese so he could fatten her up again."
Hina cut him off after the seventh tangent.
"As I said, I will finance your expedition. But for the upcoming season, Nori and Tara must aid me in certain projects meant to bring on many changes here at the Sou."
"Ho-Ho! Foo! Too bad for you two. Mom here can be a real slave-driver."
"Don't laugh that oversized ass of yours off, Haruka! Because with your bar-tabs and shopping bills plus the damage you and your pals did to Alice's, I own it outright! When you get back, I will set you on the path of responsibility."
That did draw a laugh. Later that evening, Hinata awoke to the sound of someone losing much of the dinner they'd eaten. It was Tara. There was also blood from her mouth.
"You poor dear. Let me call-"
Tara cleaned herself off, and stopped Hina.
"I don't want them to know. Please?"
After she was done, Hina guided the younger woman to her room.
"What is it they don't know?"
Tara shrugged.
"The doctors told me that it wasn't the best idea..."
She produced a picture of her with a smiling infant happily feeding on her bosom.
"But when Hank-her father-died, I couldn't get rid of the last piece of him left on this Earth. Now, there's no real saying when it will happen-just that it will."
Hina smiled at the pretty little one, but glared at its mother, barely past being a baby herself.
"Yet you want to spend what time you may have left gallivanting around the world?"
Tara pointed in the direction of the other guests' rooms.
"Those two are my world. My place is by their side. I'm convinced they'll wise up and marry any day now, and they can take care of her the way I won't be able to. Inactivity is only going to make me weaker even more quickly. I want my time to be filled with the stuff that fills up journals-journals I can leave to Sarah and tell her that I kept to the family motto : Be brave and adventurous, like Little Sister."
"Your little sister is an adventurer?"
She smiled, a less air-headed smile than Hina had allowed for when they first met.
"No. See, an ancestor of mine-named Sam like my Granddad-got stationed overseas. Part of Admiral Perry's Imperialist effort to force Japan to do things against its will. I am so sorry for-"
Hina waved her off.
"The long-term results were good, my dear. Continue your story."
The political screed cut off, Tara did just that.
"Well, he came ashore and met a Japanese girl, about his sister's age, and they kind of acted like brother and sister, and when his real sister wrote that she was scared without him, he told her to be brave and adventurous, like his Japanese little sister. Ever since that time, MacDougal women can get through anything, because somewhere out there is our brave and adventurous little sister. It sounds silly, I know. But I couldn't get knocked out for delivery, and thinking of that old story saw me through the pain-Grandma? Are you crying?"
Two brave girls held onto each other and kept one another's secrets through a long night and for one of them, through a longer night to come.
1991
Ashura looked out at her surroundings.
"I'm gonna live my whole life here!"
Jung smiled and nodded.
"Now this is high living."
Annie Saito was ready to move in.
"An all-girls dorm! We'll be like mothers to any younger girls."
Julie Kisaragi set down her bags.
"Someday I'll be a CEO and have a secretary do that for me. This place is the start of something big for me!"
Kanae marked off her room quickly.
"No more older brother and his weird girlfriends! I'd swear one of them was the devil."
Felice and Molly bowed to Haruka, who rolled her eyes and looked at Grandma.
"These girls will probably never leave here. But me? I'm gone first thing. I'd rather live in the back-room at Alice-San's restaurant. Make book on that! House Mother my ass."
1993
Haruka's predictions proved somewhat off, as evidenced by later new arrivals.
"But suppose boys come in? Boys who want to take our innocence?"
"You kidding? We should be that lucky."
Ironically, the girl seemingly wishing for her deflowering was scared beyond description of that far-off day, and the seemingly fearful one merely curious.
"It's good to have you back, Naru."
"Back, Grandma-San?"
She obviously did not recall her early childhood visits. Hina relented from reminding her
"After a long day wandering around with Mitsune."
"A THOUSAND apologies, Grandma-san. I told her we should have gotten permission!"
Mitsune Konno rolled her eyes.
"Naru, remind me not to be around when you finally unclench those cheeks. The gas inside must be toxic after all these years."
"Guess you'll never have a problem there, Konno-San. A boy probably put it there on you, too."
Mitsune stiffened up in apparent fear, then shifted to a feigned calm.
"I get around. No apologies from this girl."
"Hmmph! Well, any guy who gets in the way of my grades is not going to have anything to put on or in anyone ever again!"
As the two went upstairs to their room, Haruka smirked.
"I think we need to take whatever liquor we confiscate from Konno-Chan - and give it to Narusegawa-Chan to loosen her up."
1994
"The truth be known, she is a magnificent warrior. I can barely stay ahead of her, with all my most advanced techniques."
Grandma sat and listened, something she was good at.
"But my marriage touched off something deep in her. A fear that has haunted her since our parents left us too soon. I have raised her as best I can, but I am only just ready to be a wife-I can no longer be her mother as well. She is afraid of men, and looks upon her fellow woman with contempt. I can beat her on the field-handily, if her confidence comes into play-but I cannot break the shell she's built around herself."
Leaving as invisibly as she came, the visitor left. Hina called to the girl in the next room.
"Motoko-your sister has given permission for you to live here."
1996
"We trust your discretion in this matter."
Hina frowned.
"She's already made quite an impression on the others. Motoko is in hiding."
The man in the black suit and glasses shrugged.
"She must learn of the ways outside our environs-not to mention clothes. We've been working on that. Doctor Henry Jones' associate, Doctor Seta, spoke highly of this place."
"Is there anything else I should know about?"
"Yes. She is fond of two things above all others-bananas-and-"
Outside, a rocket was being ridden by a dark-skinned blond girl whose new dress had torn off during launch.
"Inventions. She likes to invent."
Hinata raced downstairs. Though she despised so-called Instant Pudding, it served an important purpose.
"Kaolla Su? Who's for banana pudding cream pie?"
The rocket was ditched, the pie eaten and a nude was dressed.
Because Grandma Hina is just that good.
1997
Her date for the evening had fled in terror. Shinobu Maehara was in tears. Haruka was an hour getting to fall asleep.
"She all right, Haruka-chan?"
"You punched her date, Naru."
"Hey! My robe-"
"He was eleven, Naru. He probably didn't even know what it was he saw."
"He was a coward, though."
"Motoko, you threatened to lop off his-"
"Only to test his resolve-a test he failed. Shinobu-chan is better off without him."
"He wasn't much fun, either. He complained the whole time."
"Is that the whole time you had him in the giant pinball, Su?"
Kitsune raised a finger in the air.
"Let us resolve that this girls-only dorm remain male-free-we can go over to their houses!"
"You're impossible!"
"She is that-but I agree with the first part."
"Boys aren't very durable. Shinobu's date was screaming even as I strapped him in to the pinball. Maybe they shouldn't come around here."
"I'd call that a resolution. I am on the verge of taking first in all of Japan for Todai Prelims. I don't need hairy voyeuristic greaseballs distracting me."
Hina emerged after Haruka dispersed Shinobu's would-be guardians.
"That one in there is as fragile as they come-but the rest wanna make this some kind of female hideout. Mom, we're supposed to be preparing them for the world-but they want to live in fear of it."
Hina smiled.
"They are a formidable bunch, apt to get their way. So what is required is-a living force of chaos that cannot be planned for."
Early 1998
The girls sat stunned. Naru openly gasped.
"A vacation?"
Motoko eyed her mentor.
"Are you the real Hinata? For she never relaxes."
Su looked frightened.
"But you have so many things to teach me, Grandma-like how that creature lives in the garbage can next door to the giant yellow canary."
Shinobu put her hands together.
"Grandma deserves time off-ohhhhhh-but please don't go? What will I do without you?"
Kitsune tried to look nonchalant.
"The place-really wouldn't be the same without you. This place-wouldn't be this place without you."
The hurt on the trickster's face told the story.
"Relax, you crybabies. It will be a short vacation. You'll barely know I'm gone."
Motoko jumped into the air, sword drawn.
"That vase moved-I will swear that the vase moved!"
"Calm down!"
"Nearly gave me a heart attack!"
"The vase did not move!"
The girls cleared out, with Shinobu and Su running back for hugs. When the room was secure, Hina wrote a note and kicked the vase.
"Kanako-give this note to your father and have him call me."
The vase did not respond.
"Don't make me give you to Motoko!"
The vase vanished mere seconds later.
The next day, a potted plant appeared. A cell phone sat atop it.
"My child-it's not a disguise if you're just wearing what amounts to a giant box!"
The cell-phone stayed and rang. The plant un-potted itself.
"Mom?"
"You got my note, Kenjiro?"
"Mom, I am not going to throw my son out over a simple disagreement."
"But he has challenged you. Can you let this stand?"
"But Mom? I'm beginning to think he can make Todai this time, if he has no distractions. He's really improving."
Hina knew this, but for the sake of her other charges, she needed her grandson distracted.
"Are you his father or his pal? Draw a line and tell him it is either your bakery or his impractical dream."
"Mom-is this one of your schemes? Tarika-Nee told me all about how you pull these stunts-"
"KENJIRO!"
"Yes, Mother. The Line Is Drawn."
Mid-1998
Haruka made a phone call.
"Mom? You'll never guess who showed up...yeah, him. Vacation running longer than you thought? He's...he's what? Mom, they're never going to accept him. He didn't mean to do it, but they see him as this huge liar now...no they hate him most of all. Mom, if you do this, you're tossing a sausage bomb into a house of wool, and...wow. Ok, I get it now. You are devious."
1999
"Nice of you to call, Mom. Well, he ran off, then they ran off, and we're taking care of Tara MacDougal's daughter now-no, she likes to hit him too. The only one who doesn't do it is Shinobu. Accepted? Well, they are hitting him less and achieving less distance when they do, so that's something. I guess. This was supposed to be a short vacation, right? Mom?"
2000
"Did you send her? NO-did you send her? You did? Well-Mom-my niece nearly BLEW UP THE FREAKING HINATA SOU-and not in the innocent way Kaolla Su does sometimes-I mean in a deliberately 'If I can't have him no one will' kind of way. Yeah. Any more instances of nudity? Mom, it's been two years. We could give each other physicals by now. Call off your dog-or I expose the whole scheme. You old demon schemer-they were coming together even before Keitaro left with Seta! Ohhh! Kanako exceeded her orders? YOU THINK?"
August 2001
"Mom? So-that was it? You show up and confirm that they knew each other back when, then-pfft? Okay, whatever. Mission accomplished, and I can go off on my honeymoon. Just please tell me that you didn't plan Molmol. You didn't? No-no-NO-don't try and tell me you couldn't. Just that you didn't."
September 2001 - Bakersfield, California
A woman successful in all fields of Human endeavor stood before what was once her late husband's greatest disgrace. The comical plaque read - 'Kamikaze Plane - Hardly Used' and then another told its story. Inside a case was a poster of Jerry Lewis in badly-done (supposedly) *Asian-looking* make-up, face wide in a funny-looking scream as he sat in a cockpit.
"If it weren't for this wreck, we would never have met. Awa-you were like the first solid dream in what had been a long nightmare-and I miss you-and I wonder when I will see you again..."
She spoke in a whisper.
"...for I almost welcome that day."
April 16th, 2002
Perhaps, she now realized, she was again a little too ready to move on. But coul
she find the courage to call her grandson back?
"Excuse me, please?"
A boy approached the front door. Hinata bid him come in.
"Yes?"
"Ma'am? I-my name is Kenichi. I once dated Shinobu Maehara. I-kind of ran off that night-"
"Yes, Kenichi. I remember you."
"Yes, Ma'am. But-during your absence, I came back and made an utter fool of myself. I was crazy from all the years away-and I wish you would tell all the others on my behalf that I am very, very sorry. I must go."
The boy stopped and shook his head.
"I must have been the biggest idiot this Sou has ever seen."
He was gone quickly, his embarrassment obviously still strong. Hina smiled after he was well away.
"No. Not the biggest fool by any stretch. For the greatest fool is also an ungrateful one."
Hina placed a call to the Hilda Inn, looking for her grandson and his-lady friends.
They were not there.
ON A PLANE OVER KANSAS CITY
"Was Keith disappointed, Sempai?"
"A little, Shinobu. But he understood my reasoning. Win or lose-"
He smiled to see his fiancée, and all the contenders for her spot, soundly and peacefully asleep.
"-not going back to see Grandma one last time would be too much like running away."
He nodded.
"And I'm through running."
SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2001
People of sick, twisted intent-people as bad or worse than the plotters of the attacks that day-watched as Hinata Urashima was saved and another died in her place. Two of these shrugged.
"Whether with the blood of a saint or that of the worst of sinners..."
"...so will the Red Gate open, and let slip all that never was!"
Hina had been saved, and a plotter punished. But some evils, millennia in the plotting, just kept on.
And when their plot came to pass, they would be challenged by the oddest bunch in Human history.