Life After Molmol, Book Two : Making Your Way

by Gojirob

The Hinata-Sou's residents are united as never before. Their goals are Tokyo U, fixing things up, and being there for each other. But romances and exhaustion join with potential tragedies past and present to make sure things never get dull for our gang.

12. Chapter Eleven - A Life Less Animated

Chapter Eleven - A Life Less Animated...

NOT THE HINATA-SOU WE KNOW, 2003

"Yahhhhhhh! They're crazy!"

To be fair, Keitaro Urashima was used to running for his life, and it was also not unusual for him to be running from this group of ladies.

"Sempai Must Stop!"

"Big Brother Is Making The Wrong Choice In This Thing!"

For the most part. Usually, those two young girls were not part of the bunch trying to tear him to pieces.

"C'mon, Little Bro! It's you an' me, way it's gotta be!"

"She's too indecisive for you! I'm obviously...ohhhh."

Of those two women, one had never seemed to be head over heels, and the other he thought had accepted his choice.

"She fell asleep in the middle of the chase? Really?"

Now, the woman by his side was usually the worst of his punishers. But now, she was also set to be punished for having openly kissed her man in front of them.

"Don't complain, Narusegawa. She tripped up Motoko, and if we speed up now, we can get away!"

They huffed and puffed while her Sou-sisters tripped over Mutsumi and argued, and made it to a pay phone.

"Keitaro-use it to call Haruka-San on her cell-phone! She can corral them."

Keitaro did just that, but made a major mistake.

"Hello? Auntie? It's Kei-"

The blaze of automatic machine gun fire that spewed from the receiver shocked but really didn't surprise the newly declared couple. Naru grimaced, but held back from slapping him.

"You know better than to call her Auntie!"

Keitaro took her hand and kept running.

"She's with Seta. Says they're going to a place called - Toudai."

She smiled at him, and he for once overcame his nerves and smiled back.

"Keitaro, do you realize what this means?"

"Yeah, I do!"

They looked each other in the eye with joy as they spotted Seta's plane, its ladder lowered as other unknown planes pursued it. They spoke as one.

"The lovers go to Toudai!"

But as they spotted an enraged Motoko just behind them, and the others not far behind her, the world went blank. The world then also suddenly grew heavy, so heavy even Naru could not move.

At least for then and for there, these lovers were not going to their Toudai.

THE WORLD OF OUR STORY, TOKYO GENERAL HOSPITAL, 2002

"How the hell can they be us-when we're us-ummm-we are us-aren't we?"

Naru's question was not merely to Kei, but a plea to sanity itself, which, while not always an ally of the Hinata siblings, seemed to be slacking off especially hard on that day.

Kei had no answer for his woman. One of the youngest members of his group grabbed Mutsumi before she fell over.

"Mutsumi, what did you call them?"

Mutsumi Otohime had psychic abilities that were mostly undefined, and that she simply spoke of as listening and seeing. But she was glad Shinobu held her fast, for both senses caused her pain then and there.

"They shouldn't be here. They shouldn't exist here. They're not from here. The life force that animates them is not of this place."

The attackers held back for some reason, and Motoko made the next observation, while calculating how best to beat herself.

"They look like us, if someone streamlined our forms and faces. I would wager their minds and souls - their character - are also simpler."

It was the sort of observation that would normally have Naru snarking if not ranting about the logic and process behind its reasoning. But it had a very solid feel and truth to it, almost undeniable despite its thin-air summoning.

"Okay-but if they are us, then why aren't they talking? We're not known as a reticent bunch, last I checked."

Kaolla Su did some digital voodoo on her laptop, and came up with an answer.

"That armor has control elements in it. They're getting a signal-ohhhh-but I can't jam it. The tech is based on mine, but someone really played with it."

Mitsu's trickster mind was already working on the dilemma.

"Su-you didn't clone us, did you? I remember you taking our nail and hair clippings, before we could sign up for Molmol's army."

Su seemed offended.

"I did take them, but only for if one of you died or got really hurt. Besides, those wouldn't be enough to attempt cloning. I'd need a recent mouth swab, blood-a whole lot of things, and even then-"

She pointed to her unmasked counterpart.

"Do you honestly think I'd give my double an overbite like that?"

Shinobu conceded that point for the group.

"They do seem a bit much-especially the other Mutsumi's eyebrows-errr-eyebrow? But why did they stop attacking?"

The situation had Kei as close to freaking as he had been since almost the first night he returned to the Sou. But he had become the leader of his family, and like it or not, that meant keeping his head for then and there.

"They're trying to keep us here, and away from helping Auntie, Seta, Sarah and the baby. They may have other operatives after them. Ladies, charge them! We have to break through!"

Unfortunately for him, keeping his head and using it effectively were no guarantees of victory. Motoko's leap was snapped back by a surge from the alt-Kitsune, her rubbery grin briefly breaking through as the samurai fell. Shinobu was nearly doubled over by alt-Motoko's bokken before she could take more than a step. Naru was shocked by a prod that the super-fast Alt-Su kept sticking her with, always just out of reach. Alt-Shinobu nearly nailed Mutsumi several times with her frying skillet, till a glancing blow forced her back as well. Mitsu tried teleporting away, but alt-Naru's reach was simply insane, and Mitsu soon tired out. Kei, flustered from watching his friends and loved ones fall, didn't notice alt-Keitaro walk up and just push him over. In a pile in the corner of the garage, the Sou siblings tried to regroup. Mitsu offered her usual snark, but it was not at all an arrogant snark. Like all the others, that had been beaten out of her by the invaders with their faces.

"We got beaten back worse than a Sentai just before their first Henshin!"

Shinobu was forced to agree.

"Even in the American Power Ranger dubs, they got more hits in than we did."

Mutsumi, normally the picture of calm, felt her rage grow at seeing the weirdling duplicates of those she cared for, and the two she loved best of all.

"They shouldn't be here-there's a wrongness about them-I think it's putting us off our mark."

Motoko seemed a bit calmer. There was an opponent, and she was by the side of the man she loved, even if he would not be hers.

"Doubtless, they are made right for where they belong-umm, or maybe they're weird even there. But Urashima is right - this attack is meant to occupy us. Note how they fail to press their advantage, even now."

Naru was staring directly over at her counterpart, and was clearly fuming.

"There's something about her I really, really, really don't like. Mitsu, can't you call down the lightning and fry these phonies?"

Kei seemed to take note of something while Mitsu shrugged.

"Hey, I've been trying. But I have to get them into position. You, me and Bro may be Immortal, but not everyone here is. Position means concentration, and since the other Naru seems to be the daughter of Plastic Man or Reed Richards or something, I don't have a prayer - no matter who my great-grandfather is."

Su threw her laptop down. She looked near tears, and she couldn't meet Kei's gaze.

"Darn it! I'm programming up a storm, but the other me must have a mental link set up to counter any efforts at hacking their armor. Onii-Chan, I'm so sorry!"

Kei held her chin tenderly, and wiped the few tears that emerged away.

"Su? We all know you did your best. Besides, while tech helps us and hurts us, we at the Hinata-Sou are strong because we care about each other, whether we're getting along or just getting on each others' nerves. And that's just how we'll beat these posers. After all, if Motoko is right, then they're simple and we're deep. Heck, it'll be like a battle of manga vs. anime!"

Seta, Sarah and the new baby finally arrived at Haruka's hospital room, where once more her man knew enough of his woman to calm Haruka immediately.

"No one ever touched either of our girls."

He handed the sleeping baby over to its mother, where its great-grandmother waited next to her. Hinata had seen many wonders, and many horrors. But her grandchild/great-grandchild held her transfixed.

"She is beautiful. You two have every cause to be proud."

Seta smiled and looked at his wife.

"Now?"

She grinned, having forgotten this plan in the excitement of the day.

"Do it!"

Seta shook his head broadly.

"I just don't know if she's really mine."

Sarah hid her smile, and despite Haruka's own smile, Hinata reacted with shock to the assertion.

"How can you deny this child is yours? Are you accusing my daughter of being an open-legged slut?"

"Thanks, Mom. But I..."

"Because she hasn't been that for a great many years now!"

Haruka rolled her eyes.

"Thanks, Mom."

Seta stood his shaky ground.

"Nevertheless, I'll need a DNA test, and until then, I can't sign the Birth Certificate."

Haruka shrugged.

"You bum. Oh, well. The baby will just have to use my family name till all this is resolved. Here, Mom. You hold this poor unfortunate bastard child. Hey, deadbeat? Is it all right if I give her the name we chose for her?"

Seta seemed too calm for someone who had slandered a very tough family.

"Suit yourself."

Hinata held the baby, and again perhaps the tender moment had her sharp brain on overload. So Haruka sprang the rest of her loving trap.

"Mom? Will you witness the naming?"

There were times when an overlong life seemed well worth the trouble. This was that for Hinata.

"Of course."

Sarah was allowed to complete their play-acting.

"Then Hinata Urashima-meet-Hinata Urashima."

The old Hinata drank in every last moment of holding the new, and welcoming her to the world. Seta nodded.

"You know-I guess I won't need that DNA test after all."

Hinata Urashima handed off Hinata Seta to her father, but took her revenge.

"Good. Keitaro will be relieved to hear this."

Seta laughed, but Sarah grimaced.

"Ye-ah. Haven't worn that squicky joke thin, now have we? Brain Bleach, Stat!"

But Sarah also realized something, and went to the hospital room's door.

"Oh-when those guys were chasing us, these two helped us get away."

As Kei and Motoko had correctly thought, the doppelganger attack in the garage had been a cover for a more direct attack. An attack that was in fact repelled and stopped. The girl with the purple hair patch walked in, and Haruka sighed.

"Please don't be my newborn daughter traveled back from the ninja zombie pirate robot future, come back to make things right. That and the purple patch are just way too Toriyama."

Hinata Seta, aged 20 years, shrugged.

"It's actually a pretty good future. But a rough spot is coming up, and I wanted to prevent my kidnapping. I got recovered pretty quickly, but you two never got over almost losing me. That one event, I was allowed to change because it only moved the deck chairs, instead of trying to stop the iceberg, so to speak."

Haruka opened her arms.

"C'mere, You!"

The girl Hinata was held by the mother that allowed for weirdness like this.

"Look, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Onee-Chan-I can't stay long. When Uncle Kei and the Aunties get back, I have to hand them something and go not long after. But I brought a gift to my own birth-a gift for Grandma-and Mama as well."

An older man only hours way from his chosen time of death stepped forward, now. Haruka instantly felt like a little girl again, and Hinata felt her heart beating like it had not since 1978.

"The ladies in my life have grown more beautiful and in number as well, I see."

"Awa?"

"Granpa Urashima?"

If Arlo had not been so thunderstruck by his own reunion, he might have noticed the Urashimas, dead and living, or that Shinobu had rushed out to join her siblings for a pitched battle.

But in this lapse he may be easily forgiven.

For on this self-same active day (though the Hinata-Sou had seen and would see wilder ones) he had at last met and confronted his biological father, and found him to be if anything more worthless than his mother's words and silences and even hard slaps had already told him.

On this day, he had learned of the pain that drove his mother early on, when she considered simply destroying her newborn child, and alternately raged at her and understood her completely.

On this day, he and his new girlfriend had fought furiously over the man she would likely always love, but had discovered he was gaining ground on that man as well, when he and that girlfriend addressed each other without honorific.

Now (and his incredible day was not yet complete), he had at last met the grandfather who had spurned his mother despite ideals that argued he should at least have forgiven her youthful mistakes.

"Do you have nothing to say to me, Alice-Chan?"

Arlo's Mother had done quite well for herself in the years since she was turned away. But memories die hard, if ever, and now she was once again a girl with a large stomach, a suitcase and a prayer that family friend Hinata Urashima would put her up for a while.

"Am I your little girl again, Old Man? Just like that? All is forgiven? Because I can assure you, all is not forgiven."

Rather than stalk off or demand respect, the old man at least acknowledged the justness of her anger.

"We here tend to believe that fealty flows ever upward-from child to parent, ad infinitum. As a youth, I railed against this, demanding that we remember the grim journey such beliefs took us on. It took Gojira's hideous rampages in the 50's to have other countries forgive us, and the rebuilding demanded by Gamera-Dono's sacrifice three years ago to revive our dead economy. But when it came to my own child, I was the monster-and a hypocrite. All can be forgiven, my wonderful Alice - if you will forgive me."

Alice bitterly pointed to her son.

"Me? It is him you must apologize to. Him, who you left without a family, or a name. Arlo as a boy did not have time to play. And because of the neediness your banishment brought out in me, an obedient child was slapped constantly, because I wanted to bring him pain! Because I did not merely see his father's face in his, but my father's as well."

Arlo stood up, but not in anger, at least to hear his voice.

"The terms for my forgiveness are stark, but simple, Grandfather. If you will do this thing I ask, I will aid you and lend my support to your efforts to reconcile with my mother."

The older man nodded, and stood up himself.

"That which is you describe is worth any price, so name yours-grandson."

Arlo looked at his mother, to make certain he had not exceeded what she found allowable. Finding no objection in her face, he kept on.

"You and my mother have both said that a man once an iconoclast very suddenly became a traditionalist, when his daughter became pregnant out of wedlock."

The older man nodded.

"You wish to know why I spurned my stated beliefs by also spurning your mother?"

Arlo shook his head.

"Only in part. Such things are known to happen, when ideals meet reality. She was still your little girl, and the situation could have had that effect on you. Stress had made my mother a figure to be wary of, after all, yet I could not love her more. No. My question is an even simpler one, yet again, also harsh. Even with due respect, I must demand as complete an answer as you can give."

Arlo's grandfather closed his eyes and braced himself, for he knew well what was coming.

"Ask."

"Hai. Grandfather, if you turned away and banished my mother for getting pregnant, why did you and your family not also spurn the man who cheated on his wife-to-be and got my mother pregnant? My mother was a girl, and she was misled by her Sempai. Yet he remained married to your niece and a member of your family, at some point still living in your home, and to see him today, I have to believe he never stopped pursuing young girls. You I may forgive, but never him, partly because he would never ask it or seek it. Why, grandfather, was the dragon taken back into the castle, and the princess driven out?"

Hiro, a man who once thought he was aptly named, looked at his daughter.

"Do you demand this as well?"

Alice shook her head.

"Should I have to demand it?"

Hiro sat back down.

"No. It is an answer I should have given long ago."

He breathed in, and his estranged family members briefly thought he was going to faint.

"That answer is a simple one."

He nodded, while fighting back tears.

"Because I am a coward."

Hiro lost the fight with the tears, but as he controlled them once again, he found his daughter was now sitting next to him, and she took his hand, squeezing it for support.

"I have waited a long time for this, Papa. Now, please-tell me all the rest of it."

As he began to do just that, Arlo first noticed that Shinobu was gone from his side. Since he could not leave his mother at a moment like this, a bit of resentment began to build.

*She better have a damned good reason for this.*

In the parking garage, Kei took the lead in trying to take down their doppelgangers by other means. He walked up to within fifteen feet of alt-Keitaro.

"A ronin who failed to get into Todai!"

Alt-Keitaro began to shake, and now Motoko moved against her opponent.

"A falsely strong warrior who is afraid of even a pet turtle!"

Alt-Motoko's grip on her weapons now seemed unsteady, and this was Mitsu's cue.

"Just keep on faking your way through life, girl-because no one will ever take you seriously."

A stunned look replaced Alt-Kitsune's cocky smile. Shinobu saw her opening.

"Sempai has chosen another. Because you were not mature enough."

Alt-Shinobu's face began to contort in pain, so much so that Kei had to be shushed into silence when he tried to say how this wasn't true. Mutsumi gave her all.

"They play with each other now. They don't play with you anymore."

Alt-Mutsumi fainted, but a shrug from the one they knew confirmed that this really didn't tell them anything. Su stood and stared at her counterpart, produced a large mallet, and sent her flying.

"I have one-but it's just too horrible to ever be spoken out loud."

Finally, Naru had to take the one she knew best, and her nerves in doing so in fact led the way.

"Whenever things don't go just your way-you run away."

Alt-Naru winced, frowned-and then punched Naru back against the wall. As Naru realized this was the second Naru-dent she was leaving in this hospital that day, the other Alts attacked their targets, once again leaving the Sou-siblings in a pile of flesh and hurt. Motoko felt something.

"Urashima, is that your hand up my..."

Mitsu responded.

"Nah-that's me, Toko."

Motoko frowned.

"You could have at least let me think it was him. I haven't gotten any action lately!"

Mutsumi looked at her.

"You are dating my brother, right?"

Before Motoko could respond, she saw outside the parking garage at the Emergency Room entrance, where a woman was in a wheelchair, being pushed by her nervous-looking husband. She stood up to confirm who she knew it to be.

"What's Tsuruko doing here? Is my sister giving birth today as well?"

At these words, Alt-Motoko's body broke out in spasms, and her suit sparked, until she was clearly unconscious and her armor inoperable. Mitsu again grasped the point.

"If we were all past those flaws we put up in their faces, then so were they. Rational fears aren't enough, girls and boy - we need to go for the psychological jugular!"

Mutsumi smiled, nodded in agreement - then asked a question.

"Mitsu, how do we do that?"

For which the reformed trickster had no answer. But their brother did. Kei rose and pointed in the air.

"We are the Siblings Of The Sou! We'll-make it up as we go along!"

Having no better answer, his sisters rose in unison to cheer this very vague battle plan. Despite her questioning, Mutsumi moved quickly against her revived counterpart.

"Does Your Mother Know That You're Out?"

This time, the fainting was like unto the end of a Rocky movie as she swooned and sparked furiously. Mutsumi smiled as Alt-Mutsumi was down for the count.

"I always tell her where I'm going."

Shinobu hated what she had to do to her counterpart.

"My new boyfriend-who is NOT SEMPAI-is a better cook than me, and showed me how to cook blowfish-illegally!"

Alt-Shinobu was thrown back with physical force by her reaction to the tripled blow, and her armor blew off entirely. Motoko glared at Shinobu.

"How come your counterpart got stripped naked?"

Shinobu covered Alt-Shinobu with her jacket.

"I may not be Sempai's girl, but I am his best student."

Naru sidestepped Alt-Naru's stretchy punches, and gave forth with her true attack.

"I give this whole attack a grade of-"

Naru placed her fingers on her temples in a steeple, as if to aim the words with more force,

"-C!"

The woman who was her boy's girl followed this by building up speed, and then rabbit-punching her staggered foe until her armor was almost gone.

"Hmmph. It won't come off her crotch. Well, she can keep that much."

Shinobu shrugged.

"A grade of C, Sempai?"

Naru closed her eyes and pointed upward.

"Outright failure happens from time to time. But there is no excuse for a middling result."

Mitsu brought her best to Round 2.

"Second biggest? Girl, your boobs are barely seventh in rank - and when Naru gets knocked up by Kei and when Shinobu and Su blossom, you may not even make the top ten."

Enraged, Alt-Kitsune moved despite her armor sparking, so Mitsu gave a finishing move that would make Great-Granpa Raiden proud.

"AND NOBODY LIKES THE LEFT ONE!"

In the midst of a leap, Alt-Kitsune shuddered and fell, her armor melted off her and she managed to actually speak a few words, though it was in an accent more rural than Mitsu even thought existed.

"If it's all the same to you, I'll take a drink now."

Mitsu kicked her straight in the head.

"The bar is closed, kid."

Kei approached Alt-Keitaro. Naru saw the glassy look on his face, and knew he had entered another trance.

"This is not good. Why would you go all unemotional at a time like this?"

He smiled at her, but it was the single most unnerving smile she had ever seen.

"Not unemotional. Just a certain type of emotion and personality."

As Naru wondered why she simply hated that smile, Kei found his opponent once again pushing on his chest to knock him down. This was all the cue Kei needed. He looked Alt-Keitaro directly in the eyes.

"Why are you grabbing my boobs?"

Sweat began to pour from the duplicate's head, and tears from his eyes. But Kei kept on.

"MORON! You're still grabbing me there."

Naru made the connection and felt her stomach turn.

"Oh, Kei-anything but that."

Alt-Keitaro moved his hands back, but his sweaty fingers caught on Kei's shirt, opening and then tearing it.

"Idiot! You did that on purpose, didn't you, PERVERT!?"

As Alt-Keitaro became a shaking bowl of Jell-O, Shinobu felt a stirring.

"Wowie-Yaoi."

Reasoning that Alt-Keitaro was their leader, Kei moved through his borrowed repertoire to its inevitable conclusion.

"Don't just stand there staring - get out of here."

Motoko grinned.

"Oh, this so takes me back."

Alt-Keitaro muttered.

"I'm-I'm sorry...sorry...sorr..."

Kei took a piece of shattered concrete and slammed Alt-Keitaro in the face.

"STOP APOLOGIZING!"

What followed next snapped Kei out of his trance.

"Umm, did he just turn to liquid and melt out of his armor?"

Shinobu clapped as Alt-Keitaro solidified.

"Bravo, Sempai! But where were the rest of us?"

Kei bowed.

"I was keeping the rest of you in reserve. But I promise, Shinobu-next I would have called him a jerk while crying."

What should have insulted her instead put hearts in Shinobu's vision. But now Su faced a dilemma.

"I can't do it. I just can't."

Alt-Kaolla Su was at her laptop, and the other doppels began to stir. Mitsu pointed.

"Su, you have to. She'll revive them and start the whole thing over again. We can't take much more of this."

"No! It's too horrible."

Shinobu took her friend's hand.

"My friend can do anything she puts her mind to."

Kei picked Su up and gave her a hug.

"They don't belong here, Su. This fight is hurting our counterparts worse than us. Help them-and all of us. Please? For me?"

Su kissed him on the cheek.

"You had me at the hug, Onii-Chan."

She kicked the other Su's laptop away.

"You-have forced me to use a song so vile and obscene, it is banned forever in Molmol and all surrounding islands. No foreign diplomat may sing it while on our soil-"

Alt-Su began to shake. Su nodded.

"Yes-it is that one. But it's for your own good!"

Su cleared her throat, and began to warble the old ditty.

"Yes, we have no bananas
We have-a no bananas today
We've string beans, and onions
Cabashes, and scallions,
And all sorts of fruit and say
We have an old fashioned tomato
A Long Island potato But yes, we have no bananas
We have no bananas today."

With the horrid words spoken, Alt-Su tore her laptop apart in grief and despair, and tore off her own armor. Su placed Kei's jacket over her fallen foe, and kissed her on the forehead.

"I'm so sorry. But you made me do it."

Naru pointed at her fallen counterpart.

"Get that armor off her crotch, just to be sure."

Kei shrugged.

"Why would I be able to, when you couldn't?"

Naru rolled her eyes.

"You have to ask? Women's clothing starts to loosen in your mere presence. It's like you generate a field or something. Now get it off."

He did that, then covered Alt-Naru back up. In this case, it was nothing he hadn't seen before, except for one thing.

"I think she must shave-but it was-weird."

Motoko and Mutsumi pulled him over.

"Now strip our duplicates."

"It's only fair, Kei-Kun!"

Naru sighed but allowed for it, as the garage again began to storm.

"Mitsu?"

"Not me, girl. Look!"

The portal opened, with one large armored figure, obviously female, and a much smaller one moving at them. The larger one was holding a very large repeater gun, and the smaller one, an ornate slab of ancient-looking stone. Kei knew who they were.

"Sarah-and Auntie?"

Steam rose from the larger figure, who removed her helmet to confirm that this was Alt-Haruka Urashima. She fired up her gun.

"DON'T-EVER-CALL-MEEEEEE-"

She laid down suppressive fire in all directions as Alt-Sarah gathered their fallen comrades, ancient tablets and vases being thrown like ninja stars as the others tried to stop her. At the last one being dragged back through, Alt-Haruka screamed once more, at the absolute top of her lungs.

"-AAAAAUNNNNNTIEEEEEEEEEE!"

But, without Alt-Su to feed the gun's chips commands to cool it, it finally melted down. As Naru went to strike, Kei pulled everyone back.

"Run! Their ride is here!"

Naru shrugged.

"Ride? What ride-Oh My God!"

Realization had all of them making for the exit back into the hospital. Sure enough, a flying saucer crashed through the portal as Alt-Seta came to collect his family members, taking out the garage's remaining pillars as he departed.

Because some things cannot be corrected, even by nanoprobes.

Running along with her friends, Mutsumi focused on the essences of their departed attackers.

"I have you now!"

Back inside the hospital, an administrator accepted a concocted story without too much dispute.

"That garage was always in need of maintenance. Some heads will roll when the board hears this."

Su looked at Motoko, who would later explain that most people were not even remotely prepared to deal with what really happened in that garage. Still, the lie sat well with none of them.

"Did they get to Auntie and the baby?"

When they got to the hospital room, Haruka was smiling and holding the baby. The strange girl who had aided them stood together with the older man, who, Kei realized, bore a striking resemblance to his father. Also, Grandma seemed aglow in his presence.

*A long-lost uncle or something?*

"Hey, Uncle Kei. Meet your niece, Hinata Seta - both of them."

Haruka thumb-pointed to the girl that had helped them, and Kei saw the truth in her face.

"Great shades of Toriyama!"

Haruka frowned.

"It's been done."

But for all the questions Kei might have had, it was a far freer spirit that spoke up.

"You traveled through time? You built your own time machine?"

Hinata Seta knelt down and regarded the Princess Of Molmol.

"Wow-you really were *this* cute once. I'd seen the pictures, but there is nothing like the real thing."

Kaolla Su looked upset.

"I'm not cute anymore?"

"NO! I mean, I guess some still see you that way. But to me, you're a goddess. You're my teacher, and my best pal. For years, I tried to be a ganguro, so I could look just like you. You built my time machine."

Su seemed in awe of this description of Kaolla-yet-to-be, while Hinata Seta looked around at her family.

"You all helped raise me-or you will. Needless to say, I can't offer up too much more, but I can tell you that I always wanted..."

She looked at Motoko.

"Your grace."

Shinobu.

"Your resiliency."

Mutsumi.

"Your endurance."

Mitsune.

"Your moral core."

Sarah.

"Your Boobs. You, Onee-Chan, should not be able to walk upright."

As Sarah gained a grin that Haruka slapped the back of her head to stop, Hinata Seta looked at Naru.

"Your innate sense of calm and inner peace."

As Naru chewed on that seeming non sequitur, the visitor looked at Kei.

"You."

The future girl hopped up into his arms, all but mounting him, clothes notwithstanding.

"I'm a girl who LOVES her Uncle Kei!"

Naru and Motoko peeled her off.

"And the tradition continues."

Motoko nodded.

"Apparently, she also has had training from Kanako."

Hinata Seta grinned.

"Sorry-it's those glasses."

Sarah once more felt her squick meter nearing overload, while Seta looked at his grown daughter.

"Is there a Daddy fetish in there, too?"

Hinata Seta frowned.

"Pervert! Don't be sick. Besides-"

She kissed him on the cheek.

"My Daddy gave me a world fetish. I study archaeology as it happens-invisible and intangible, of course. One day, you'll take me to see the Yucatan Peninsula."

Seta shrugged.

"That's not very exciting."

His future child added on.

"Did I forget to mention we visited it the day of the great impact-at the end of the Cretaceous?"

Kei lit up.

"Meteor or comet?"

But as Hinata-Mirai was about to respond, Haruka cut her temporal baby off.

"Hey, kiddo? Maybe you should introduce our other visitor?"

But it was Grandma who made this introduction.

"How appropriate, on this day we reconcile, Keitaro, that you finally have a chance to meet the man whose legacy you carry on."

Kei's denseness was in play, though to be fair, Grandma's words were vague enough. But all riddles ended when Kei's parents arrived to see their new grand-niece, and Kei's father gasped to see the dead walk.

"Papa? How can this be?"

As Kenjiro approached his father, Kei began to tear up.

"Granpa Awa? I...I...Naru, hit me so I don't start blubbering like a..."

But Naru was already in tears.

"So beautiful...waghhhhh!"

Kei rolled his eyes.

"...crybaby."

The punch then came, but in a second, both were approaching the gift of their newborn niece.

"Grandfather? I am Keitaro Urashima-the son of your son, Kenjiro."

Kenjiro rolled his eyes.

"I'm right here, son-and my father knows who I am."

Awa was holding the great-grandchild he by rights should never have known, but in fact had first met as a grown woman. His eyes were misting, though he kept from outright crying.

"A fine young man. And are these beauties your sisters?"

"They are, grandfather, Together, we all run the inn that bears your wife's name."

Grandma cut in once again.

"A faithful man, who rescued an ungrateful old woman from her stupid desire to die."

Before Kei could smile at this or refute it, Motoko jumped in.

"More, Urashima-Dono-we are his harem. While our brother has chosen our sister, we-SISTER?!"

Motoko gulped, and ran over to Kei in a panic.

"Kei-Kun? My sister is giving birth as we speak. I-I don't know how to be an Auntie!"

Future Hinata tried to calm her.

"He'll be a great kid, who worships his Tokoba-in about three minutes. Also, my Onee-Chan's chest. Pervert."

But Motoko was still doing an early Keitaro in her demeanor.

"But-but-what if I drop him? What if I-WAAAAAAGGGHHHH!"

She fell to her knees while holding Kei-and pulling down his trousers in the process.

"Urashima-I'm so sorry! Here-take my bokken."

Instead of even giving her the lightest tap, Kei just pulled her to her feet,

"C'mon, Motoko. You know I don't want that. Go see Tsuroko, and your nephew. From what Hina Junior here is saying, he might be my nephew one day, too."

Hina Junior-the adult version-seemed to bristle at this suggestion, but only for a second, while the baby Hina Junior cooed in Shinobu's arms. Mitsu leaned in on her.

"Looks like you're a natural, kid. You and Arlo gonna make one of those, someday?"

Shinobu was about to gently rejoinder when the name of her boyfriend re-lit the pilot light on her memory.

"Oh-My! Arlo needs me. I hope-I hope he's not mad at me. Sempai-take Hinata-ummm-the present-day baby version-from me."

"I-kind of got which one you meant, Shin-Chan."

Kei took a second to hold the baby just right, and was teased for it by his fiancée.

"Geez, Kei, drop her why doncha?"

Hinata-Mirai took her younger self and held her close.

"No worries there, Naroba."

Everyone gasped as she threw the baby against the wall, only to hear the newborn laugh and giggle. Haruka took the baby back, and found she had not even a scratch.

"Kei-yell at your niece-the future one."

Kei (who once again had already figured which one was being talked about) did just that.

"Do you have any idea how STUPID that was, young lady? You could have killed yourself, and torn apart time itself!"

Hinata Junior smiled and kissed him on the lips.

"You are soooo HOT when you shame me."

Kei drooped.

"Sorry, Auntie. Not getting through."

Hina Jr. shrugged.

"Nor are you likely to. See, in the old timeline, my kidnappers dropped me a few times-not a scratch. Fact is, you all were worried that I wasn't going to age, because I was so immortal. That's how I knew she-I-couldn't be hurt that way."

Since the baby was alright, attention turned back to the elder of the two time-travelers, who looked his wife over. Hinata Senior huffed a bit.

"I can't look that bad."

Awa held her close, belying any such notion.

"You know it's not that. To me, you can only become more beautiful. But-why have you gotten shorter? You're almost as short as you were when you were just a girl."

Hina Senior sighed, took hold of her great-granddaughter, kissed her, then handed her back to Seta. While Sarah made faces at her little sister, Hina Senior prepared to unburden herself of her greatest secret.

"I need to use the shower stall in the bathroom. When I come out, my husband will know what I kept from him all our lives, as shall my son, and my granddaughters-all of them-and my grandson will at last understand why I spurned him when he did so much for me."

As Hina made herself ready, two of her unofficial granddaughters found themselves in odd circumstances of their own. Shinobu saw Alice embracing the man she now knew to be Alice's father, and Arlo's grandfather. Blocking her from reaching them was Arlo himself, his arms folded.

"I guess we know where you'll go when I need you, Shinobu Maehara. How could you duck out on me, at a time such as this?"

Shinobu was a bit upset to be so tasked, but tried to talk things down.

"What if I say that I have a very good explanation?"

Arlo still seemed unmoved.

"I would say it had better be a damned good explanation!"

Ten minutes later, when Shinobu had given the briefest synopsis imaginable of invading alternate worlds and visiting timelines, Arlo needed to sit down.

"Damn. That was a very good explanation. Did all that really happen?"

Shinobu nearly went all frying-pan on him, but merely leaned up and got in his face.

"Are you calling me a liar, Arlo Guthrie?"

Arlo now took on a fluster that brought back early memories of Shinobu's sempai.

"NO! Noooo-it's just, all that is so fantastic, it's hard to take in. I think I'd almost prefer that you were holding the baby, and simply lost track of time."

Shinobu chuckled.

"I think we all would. But now I want to hear about why your mother forgave her father."

Arlo looked over at the two.

"I don't know that she has, entirely. But I think that process is starting. Grandfather asked her to take back his family's name. My name may not be Guthrie for much longer."

As Arlo began to explain what his grandfather told them, another new birth seemed horribly derailed. Motoko gasped and felt the blood leave her heart, as the world grew cold.

"You miscarried?"

Motoko felt her heart break, and wondered how to console a sister likely beyond consolation. Then it struck her. Hadn't the future Hinata Jr. said she had a nephew?

"Tsuruko, I am so sorry for this."

It was a trite thing to say, but Motoko rightly suspected that exactly what she said would have little impact on Tsuruko's reaction.

"You should be sorry. It was your lack of support that killed my child! You never wanted this baby to be."

Motoko silently thanked her 'brother' Keitaro for his consistent intrusiveness. It had raised her method of approaching paranoid fears to a fine art form.

"Is that so? I apologize then, for causing the death of my precious niece."

Having had to calm and deal with her fears - and the eventual realization that she somewhat liked both the peeping and the peeper, however accidental, her psychic armor had been built up.

"You apologize? My little girl is dead, because you have been a poor sister and you would have made a worse aunt!"

Also helpful were her past efforts to keep from exploding every time she saw Kei. This patience served her well right then and there.

"Your sonogram said you were going to have twins. Are you saying that both of those were lost?"

Motoko caught an eye flutter on Tsuruko's otherwise perfect mask of anger. It was all she needed for 100% confirmation as Tsuruko responded.

"The other one I miscarried weeks ago-if you could be bothered to contact your sister, you would have known this."

Motoko felt her sword and her bokken against her legs.

"Sister, tell me. Do you still also hold me responsible for the death of your husband?"

With that, Motoko had overplayed her hand, and the false Tsuruko rose up from her bed and attacked. Motoko had gained much from sparring with Kei, who had been taught by Seta.

"Witch! How did you know?"

Motoko struck with impact that would have shaken loose a disguise, so this phony was at least a false Tsuruko, and not a false Kanako.

"My sister would never have been so straightforward in her accusations. Also, even if she really felt that way, she would have taken pains to make it a lesson for me. Now where is my sister, her husband and her child?"

The duplicate sneered, and the sneer was the whole of her face.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

With that, Motoko punched the imposter into a wall, where she was knocked cold.

"You actually said 'Wouldn't You Like To Know' to me? Characters in my romance stories speak more creatively than that."

A soft crying sound came from the small closet in Tsuruko's hospital room. Motoko opened it to find her sister sobbing.

"It's all right, Onee-Sama. Your ordeal is done with."

Motoko said not one word as her sister wept, as uncomfortable as it made her to see her idol so shattered.

"Imtouko?"

"I am here, Tsuronee. But where is your child? You have given birth, that I can see."

Motoko wanted to ask the warrior who had trained and raised her to stop weeping and collect herself. But this was not in her. It was also to prove pointless.

"They have taken my child-those strange intruders took my child away because of YOU!"

Tsuruko went for her sister's throat.

"Why were you attending to mirrors of yourself for the sake of a baby girl not your own blood? Did it never occur to you that the future girl lied to keep herself safe, and place my baby as the thieves' new target?"

Motoko's shame overrode her common sense, until she remembered a promise made to her beloved Urashima.

*I don't think I really have to forgive you for anything, Toko. Just knowing you made me stronger. But if you feel you have to do penance, then promise me this : Never let your emotions keep you from hewing to the rational, A couple of times at least, I tried to explain, and you pushed that aside in either anger or sadness. Never again, OK?*

He had punctuated it with that sweet goofy smile, the sand in her oyster's shell that became a pearl. Snapping out of the second duplicate's deceitful words, Motoko pushed the false Tsuruko's hands off her throat.

"How did you even know who we fought?"

Motoko then blocked the vicious double from attempting to strangle her anew as she further questioned the attacker.

"If you were stuffed into a closet, then how did you know Oba Haruka had even given birth, let alone to a girl, who had a visiting future self?"

The second false Tsuruko kicked the first, who did not revive, then turned and smiled softly at Motoko.

"You have no idea what it is you're up against-HEYYYY!"

Motoko tore the hospital gown off the dopple, and slammed both sides of her head as she stupidly protected her modesty.

"More clichés? I HATE CLICHES! As I write my stories, I spend hours avoiding any trite dialogue such as that-You Have No Idea What You're Up Against?-is one of the ten most hateful pieces of lazy dialogue a writer can trap themselves in."

In fact, while Motoko's plots and premises and nearly everything else you could name about her stories were in fact supremely trite, her dialogue was spot-on in terms of capturing voices.

"Now you must answer for your crimes, little sister..."

Motoko sighed, praying that this third false Tsuruko would not say what she thought was coming. Yet this is exactly what the armored, masked samurai did as she finished.

"...IN FINAL BATTLE!"

Enraged, Motoko took her bokken and struck the ornate helmet-mask on the top, causing a reverb that shook the third false Tsuruko apart at the seams. The impostor crouched to cover her modesty.

"I am naked?!"

Motoko now also sent her flying with her own variant of the Naru-Punch.

"You're in Urashima-Land, Witch! Nudity is required."

Motoko prepared to look for the real Tsuruko once more, and silently gave thanks that she cut off this impostor before yet more catchphrases were uttered. Then she looked around.

"Just...great."

Six Tsurukos now faced her down, each armed with unique Katanas, fighting styles, and the one weapon Motoko now hated with a bloody vengeance.

"Prepare to die, Imouto Bitch!"

"I want to etch that look on your face forever!"

"Haven't you accepted at last that you just can't win?"

"Your fate is sealed."

"I am your rendezvous with death!"

"There is nowhere left to run, Little Sister!"

Motoko briefly flashed back to her first night at the Sou, and then to Kei's first night. Her rage was at its maximum, believing that Tsuruko's husband Shuhei and later Kei would soon be by to violate her. She slept sword in hand, shaking and sobbing. But that was false rage, and both of those men were now her true brothers, whom she now also regretted tasking, even though it was this that proved their worth. She would not regret tasking these false images of the woman that raised her. Rather than mount a pointless defense against so many ultra-skilled attackers, Motoko went on the offensive, just as her true sensei had shown her.

"NO..."

Two Katanas left their hilts, a feat supposed to be as impossible as shattering them. Motoko now turned her motions inward, to block the two opponents that rushed in to block her escape. Motoko had no more intention of escaping than of surrendering her love for the man she accepted would be only a brother. Well, sort-of accepted.

"MORE..."

One impostor got her knees shattered. Another got kneed in the crotch, which, while it would never hurt a woman in quite the same way as a man, was still a pain to be remembered for a very long time.

"...CATCHPHRASES!"

There was actual fear on the faces of the final two as the ascended warrior struck at them both simultaneously while constantly switching which weapon she used from hand to hand, frustrating any effort to generate a defense. Both caught on the chin, they went flying as Motoko cried out in ecstatic triumph.

"URASHIMA!"

Okay, okay. So she never accepted him just being a brother and never would.

After a minute, she saw a very pregnant woman entering in a wheelchair, pushed by her loving husband.

"Motoko? Sister, you got my message?"

Motoko did the unthinkable and drew both her weapons, pointing at the couple with all intent.

"Bring it!"

Without rising from the chair, Tsuruko knocked both weapons from her sister's hands.

"Stop being an idiot, Motoko. I'm about to pop, and I threw up three times on the way here."

Shuhei nodded nervously.

"That, and she has been...moody."

Tsuruko slapped him, then kissed the same cheek.

"Beloved perpetrator of this horrid blessed wrong upon my once-pure body, please go and register us at the desk. NOW!"

Shuhei almost whimpered as he went. He had his sister-in-law's sympathies. Tsuruko looked about at the carnage.

"What's with all the dead Tsurukos?"

Motoko relayed an abridged version of her impossible day. Tsuruko openly gasped at one part of it.

"So Haruka-San gave birth as well, today? How propitious."

Shuhei had come back and caught most of Motoko's story. He winced.

"Really? She describes a tale of time travel and alternate universes invading ours, and you focus on another woman giving birth?"

Tsuruko grabbed her husband's ear.

"Birth is always the greatest miracle of all. If I permit you to survive inflicting said miracle on me, beloved, you will come to realize this."

She then kissed her man deeply.

"For I plan to soon get started on the next one. Sister, help me to stand up."

Motoko did just that, and while she realized it could all be another trap, it felt too tender, to right, to be so. Plus, she was exhausted and could likely be pushed over at that point.

"Imouto, how did you beat all of those...me?"

Motoko wanted to brag on her practice, both with and without Kei, but thought better of it.

"Easily explained, Onee-Sama. While they may have all been born Tsuruko Aoyama, not one of them was my sister."

But as Tsuruko smiled at this, her nine doppelgangers reappeared, joined by the false Shuhei, the Motoko realized she had glimpsed earlier in the parking garage battle. They were now wearing the same armor she had seen on the false Sou group whose attack had started this madness. Shuhei was apparently their control.

"Attack!"

The real (or this reality's native version of) Tsuruko moved, only to be grabbed by her loved ones.

"Hit me all you want, wife, but you are not fighting now!"

"My brother speaks for me, Onee-Chan!"

Tsuruko smiled.

"Oh, I could fight, even now, as they encircle us. But know your enemy, my family. Motoko-you must never speak of what I am about to do here."

Tsuruko looked past her duplicates. Her face grew fearful.

"EEEEK! A giant spotted Hill Hamster!"

All the other Tsurukos shrieked the wails of the damned, then vanished. The false Shuhei surveyed his changed position as he sweated.

"Ummm...We'll Be Back!"

As he vanished, he was knocked unconscious by Tsuruko's hurled wheelchair. The true Shuhei had taken the false one out as he grimaced.

"Asshole. I hate dumb catchphrases."

Motoko would later tell him of her similar feelings. But for then, she questioned her sister as she helped her to the delivery room.

"Hamsters? Really?"

Tsuruko jerked a thumb back at her first and best playmate.

"Ask the little boy who dropped one inside my kimono one New Year's Day when we were only five years old."

Shuhei smiled.

"I still have the bruises to prove it."

Motoko, far from gloating over her sister's revealed phobia, joyed in knowing better someone she only thought she knew.

"I will await word of your delivery, Onee-Sama."

Tsuruko now looked concerned.

"No! Imouto, I need you in there with me. Motoko, I'm scared. I've never had a baby before."

Motoko nearly soiled herself.

"Onee-Sama, I know nothing of how to birth children!"

"Frankly, my Imouto-I don't give a damn. Besides, I'll be doing all the work."

Motoko saw the doctors take Tsuruko in, and Motoko looked at Shuhei.

"I take it the odds are against us, and the situation is grim."

Shuhei nodded.

"What we face cannot be bribed, threatened or negotiated with. She will not stop until we are in that room with her. In there, she will hurt us."

Motoko realized that her Kei had faced Auntie's pregnant wrath, and that she could do no less and still be worthy of him. She took her brother-in-law's hand. The hand of the man she once feared and hated more than a nightmare of Keitaro with industrial vacuum-cleaners for hands.

"Sounds like fun."

For the Little Blossom had begun to flower.

In Haruka's hospital room, no one could so much as breathe.

"Mom?"

"Grandma?"

Awa was at that moment showing that he really was Kei's grandfather as he fainted right into Mutsumi's chest, and when she helped him up, he fainted again into Mitsu's. She helped him to a chair.

"Guess he really is Granpa."

Mutsumi found some smelling salts for the time-visitor.

"Yes. But he doesn't move his face around, like Kei does."

Mitsu sniffed.

"He never moved his face around for me."

Yet perverted intent or no, the Urashima men - and everyone else in the room - had ample reason to gasp and breathe hard. For the elder Hinata Urashima had emerged from washing up, and now wore no makeup. It now seemed like she had been wearing a lot of makeup.

"I suppose in this one instance, I should stop and explain myself."

The old woman was gone, as though she had never existed, which some realized faster than others, she never had.

Nor was a young woman there. No, in an earlier time, and among some few modern but old-fashioned folk, the elder Hinata Urashima was what some might affectionately or more commonly derisively describe as a mere snip of a girl. Su and Sarah were the first to gingerly approach her. Su stared, smiled, and then picked the smaller girl up in a gushing embrace.

"Oh, Grandma! You're so cute!"

Sarah gestured, and Su handed a slightly fuming Hinata over.

"Let me hold her! Oh-I have a mini-Grandma! I could get my own spin-off with this. We'll call it Love Hina Grand Tour."

Haruka slapped the back of her adopted daughter's head.

"Sarah-and I never once thought I'd have to say this-don't pick your Grandma up like that."

"Ow! Getting a little slap-happy there, Lady? I'm not immortal, ya know."

Seta was speechless, as was Naru. Kei moved to be beside Grandma, but out of respect, let Haruka speak to her first.

"You-you were taller when I was little. I know you were."

Kenjiro Urashima stared at his mother.

"There are definitely some logistics involved in my birth that don't work out here. At all."

His elders having had their say, Kei asked a question that once would have gotten him slugs for impropriety and stupidity, but was at that moment the sharpest and most apropos question anyone could hope to ask. He knelt to her head level as he looked her in the eye.

"Grandma-how old are you?"

Wishing to make clear that a brief but painful time of hard feelings was done with, the girl Hinata (though still the elder) hugged her grandson.

"I turn One-Hundred-Fifty-Five this year, child."

Her voice, as much an affectation as her looks, also suited her revealed age. Awa shook his head.

"I knew this. You told me. But I saw you become a woman!"

Husband or no, Awa got a lot of stares from that statement.

"Dirty Minds! I meant I saw her age from looking like this to-how I always knew her. At least I think I did-did I-Did I-despoil a young girl-I mean a REAAAALY young girl?"

Hinata closed her eyes and tensed.

"This should answer your question-aaahh!"

Grandma Hina surged with energy and then shifted form. Now a woman of just around twenty was in view.

"I can do that, now. My Awa enabled me to do that. But I learned it takes an effort to maintain."

Mitsu pulled up a chair.

"This I gotta hear."

Grandma Hina also pulled up a chair.

"It is worth hearing. I will try and make it less complicated than my sister's explanation of your birth, Mitsune."

Mitsu almost didn't catch that Grandma had called her Kitsune-mother as sister, but when she did, decided wisely to let the story reveal all that.

"My father was fiercely opposed to the restoration, to the end of the Shogunate. He predicted that, left to their own devices, the unguided Emperors would allow foreign devils into our lands. Indeed. In fact, it was the very newest and crudest of those gaijin who broke the sakoku forever. But I knew nothing of devils. I only knew of one of the few sailors to make landfall during Perry's negotiations and threats. His name was Sam McDougal, and he was so incredibly different from everything I'd ever known, he could not help but delight me. In no time at all, I called him Onii-Chan, and he called me Hinamouto-or in his language, simply Little Sister."

Sarah's jaw dropped. Though she in fact knew very few of her distant cousins, this legend she knew all too well.

"Grandma? YOU were Little Sister? My Mom left me cards for each birthday she wouldn't be there for - Dad here used to tell me she dropped them off before returning to Heaven - and she always told me to brave like you."

Haruka did not correct her child's interruption, for this tale tied up so much of what she had known, what she had suspected, and what she could never have so much as guessed at.

"Mom-how did you come to be this way?"

As Haruka's newborn slept quietly in her arms, and as the same girl's future counterpart listened (while eyeing her Uncle Kei a little too often), everyone kept silent, including Hinata's husband, son, daughter-in-law and grandson. For to a one in that room, this was a story they had never heard before.

"It is not surprising that my father found my friendship with MacDougal-San wholly intolerable. When called before him, he did not even bother with a warning. His edict was to never see my new friend ever again. I was not the willful child he decried with every other breath, so I agreed to obey his wishes,, but begged that I be allowed to tell MacDougal-San that this was the reality we faced. I argued that, to offer him no explanation would place our House and perhaps Japan itself in a bad light. My father then said cold, chilling words which said to me that Sam MacDougal would never see anyone again, nor either of his little sisters, in America or in Japan. Admiral Perry had since sailed, the death of one sailor either not mattering to some, or he was listed as a deserter. My father then banished me for disgracing him in such a manner, and what is more, he cursed me with as perfect a form of immortality as some have seen. Since I was not disowned outright, I attempted to stay with other distant relatives, but it was always only for a time. A girl of that age who does not-age-is eventually noticed, and told to go. I learned to hunt and cook for myself, since I still got hungry and could grow weak. One day, one of my traps caught something that would change my life forever."

Mitsu smiled despite the grim story.

"You caught a fox."

Hina nodded.

"A spirit-fox. As I prepared to make a meal from its meat and winter fur from its coat, it begged me to spare it - in exchange for giving me its whole family. I was naturally suspicious, but figured I was now sharp enough and ruthless enough to take them all on, my winter worries done for years to come. I had of course made the fox swear binding promises to not eat me or allow its family or other predators to eat me. I knew by then how to word things so that no trickster, mortal or no, could cheat me without consequence. Yet this fox managed to do what no tavern-owner or Yokai had done before. For Kitsunes are always tricksters at heart. The fox had lead me to her family and stunned me by asking them to adopt me. Since she would be eaten and skinned otherwise, they had no choice. I felt enraged at first, deprived of the meal and warmth I wanted and needed. But in fact I ate well, and the warmth I had was once more the warmth of a family. I stayed with them often, and kept other Humans from them, as the modern age encroached on all their earthly homes. Needless to say, the fox I had caught became my pain-in-the-ass little sister. After some initial feuding, we became protective of each other. We each stand as the other's surrogate in the other's world, for legal and mystic reasons. She is a second mother to my children, and I to hers."

It was a small thing to say all were stunned by this. Yet again, Mitsu found a way to speak, and seemed to be on the verge of tears.

"That means, in a way, you really are my Grandma, and Kei is really my Bro. Wow-Just wow."

Mitsu looked at Naru.

"Now, you have to marry him, so we can be sisters for real."

Naru had wanted to say that they had always been this, but saw now almost painfully how much of an outsider her oldest friend had always seen herself as.

"Deal. But let's let Grandma finish."

A hand-squeeze was shared, and Hina kept on.

"But while a mortal may travel with spirits, staying with them is another story. Any time my new family would enter a realm that would simply kill a Human, I was instead pushed away, since I could not die. It could be weeks or months before I found them again, and my life in-between became hard to endure, as I moved on before I was forced to. Also, I watched as many nations of the world became harder and more imperialistic, even to Japan and America. I suppose the Americans had the advantage here-their tradition is disobedience, and a sorry tendency to dominate and interfere remained only that-for the most part. We ourselves have obedience at our core, which is a great and wondrous thing - until our leaders became corrupt. As the storm between the two nations gathered, I visited my father's grave-and acted in rage and hubris. But it was not I who paid the price for this."

She cupped her grandson's cheek once more.

"It was you. For at his gravesite I cursed my father's name. I cursed him so that, should he ever somehow return to Earth, he, so agile and able, should walk as a clumsy fool ; that he, so able of mind and focused, should be a quivering wreck, and that he, so certain and clear-minded, should know only faltering confusion and denseness."

She closed her eyes and pulled away, almost seemingly in shame.

"My father's name, you see, was Keitaro Urashima. Curses are stupid things to cast, and always bite back at the one who made them. In cursing one I hated so, I ended up cursing one I would love best of all."

Kei's parents recalled how nervous Hinata had been about his naming, and all looked concerned. But two of these were not impressed by this part of the story. One was Kei.

"Grandma? That's the stupidest thing I ever heard!"

Haruka gained a look of insight, and nodded.

"He's right, Mom. What you just said is stupid."

Now, everyone was stunned from both the glare on Hinata's face and the fact that two who so loved, respected and feared her would ever speak to her like that.

Blissfully unaware that the elder she so respected was more kawaii than she could ever be, Shinobu heard the story of Arlo's family. While less mystical, this grounding meant they had suffered at least as much pain in their own way.

"To hear my grandfather tell it, and my mother did not contradict him, it all began from good intentions."

Instantly, Shinobu's thoughts turned to the mess in Molmol, where even the schemers of their group were making it all up as they went along, differing agendas clashing and escalating and stirring up the resentments of years together. For her, it sadly culminated in the one and only time she deliberately struck out at her Sempais in anger. She could forgive herself for the times she reflexively struck Kei, when he got too close, or her fears took her. But for that moment, she would always berate herself.

"Like they say, the worst things usually do."

Arlo silently concurred and began the story of his family's fracturing.

"My grandfather was an anti-establishment activist, even twice visiting the fabled Haight-Ashbury itself. To be so in any society takes courage, and perhaps no more so than in Japan, excepting non-democratic governments. To hear it told, he was a man of fiery denunciations and able to back up his claims to conservative critics. All seemed well. He married a woman he adored, and had a daughter he adored even more, naming her for a character in an Arlo Guthrie folk song. I've heard it-it's almost spoken word, and ends with an odd mishap knocking the singer out of contention for the military draft, and thus service in Vietnam. His job was a creative one - as young 'hippie' couples started their own counter-culture businesses, he would keep the law and the corrupt from exploiting and harassing them. He also wrote books deploring our country's 'amnesiac' attitudes about the history and aftermath of the Pacific War - this was well before it was considered safe to do so. He even called the DaiKaiju attacks Heaven's recompense for not doing like the Germans did and inculcating our young on why the Fascists were so despised and reviled, and why there are still parts of Asia a Japanese subject should not go."

Shinobu thought about the horrors of those attacks - she knew vaguely that Grandma Hina had seen the creature in 1954, though not how close she and Awa had come near it. She found she did not agree with the opinion, but understood how Arlo's grandfather had arrived at it.

"That would have been around the time of Hedorah, right?"

Arlo nodded. There had been monster attacks with more raw destruction - certainly New York had seen worse with the 'Sham Gojira' incident in 1998. But Hedorah's assault brought a horror home that many could never forget, even those not born at the time.

"Yes. As you can imagine, saying such things while people were being skeletonized in the streets was not winning him any points. But I think he would have kept right on, had one of the casualties not been my great-aunt, my grandmother's sister."

Shinobu took her boyfriend's hand at this. Of course he had never met the woman, but it was obvious the subject was a tender one.

"Thank you, Shinobu. You see, as strong and as thorough a man as my grandfather had been, there was a corner of his life he had neglected, and that was his wife. His long trips and endless list of causes meant he was away more often than not. When his daughter was old enough, he joined her on many of these trips, and as a result, my grandmother was close to neither her husband nor her only child. All she had was her sister, who she said awakened long enough from her slow, lingering death from scarring and other damage caused by Hedorah's gas to beg that her own daughter be cared for always, and given all she could want, since she now had no parents."

Shinobu had already heard a red flag raised in these words, but let Arlo keep on.

"When Grandfather returned with my mother from an anti-Nixon protest in Washington, my grandmother at last laid down the law. His makeshift job, which provided them goods to live and a roof to live under by barter, had to go the way of the wind. She intended to keep her promise to her dying sister, with or without him. My grandfather was stunned that he had hurt his wife so by way of neglect, and utterly cowed by her anger and rage. He could not conceive of life without her, and so gave in to her every demand."

Shinobu recalled Motoko's very earliest frantic denial of her increasing feelings for Kei, and how when Naru listed the ways even she thought the 'pervert' had improved, Motoko had waved and shrugged off every last point in a logic-loop no warrior could fight their way out of.

"But those demands merely increased, right?"

"Not in terms of the amount or nature of those demands. But she did periodically and vastly increase the scope of what those earlier demands meant. My mother's new sister wanted a private school, and got one, despite not having the grades for a decent middle school. The aunt I have never met and hopefully never will demanded new wardrobes every New Year, and there was no debate."

Shinobu asked the obvious.

"What about Alice-San?"

Arlo shook his head.

"My mother was told that her cousin-now-older-sister had special needs, and she learned the hard way that these needs were always to be seen to well above her own. But since my grandfather had shown her early on a side of life that eschewed luxury and enshrined commitment and effort, she accepted this and became devoted to her Onee-Chan. They actually got along, or so I'm told. I wonder now if my mother saw a connection between them that this woman did not."

Shinobu felt cold inside at this. Yes, she tended to be closer to Naru and Mitsu, while Su was closer to Motoko and Sarah. But they were all sisters, and each loved the other, the events of last summer aside. They could butt heads, and they could be buttheads, but their love was genuine, real and deep.

"How did your father enter the picture?"

Arlo almost glared at her for referring to the crude fool they'd met earlier in the day as that. But he seemed to quickly remember - for good or ill, that's who he was. Arlo could reject his father, and be as different a man as possible from his father, but he could not undo the fact of it all.

"Well, the 'Real Job' that my grandfather found was as security at the very store we met him at today. He had once rescued my - my birth-father - from fellow radicals, convincing them that kidnapping was not a good route to shaking up the establishment. In this, he earned the gratitude of my other grandfather, who hired him when no others would. Of course, you couldn't put a man who once screamed 'We Deserve The Monsters For Being Ones Ourselves' on the sales floor. Even I can see that. So his job was to ride herd on my embarrassment of a father, who even then jumped on whatever moved. After one particularly bad outing, my mother's father was forced to take my father in and do nothing but watch him 24/7. Since this kept him in the job that she had demanded he take, my grandmother was forced to let a randy young man in with her two nubile daughters. Yet it worked out better than they'd hoped. My father actually kept himself somewhat well, and began to pursue my 'aunt'. My mother for her part tried to get his attention, but to him she was merely amusing and friendlier than the woman who insulted, belittled and sometimes struck him."

Arlo saw a look in Shinobu's eyes, and gambled that he knew what it meant.

"I care for you. But I demand that you do not insult your Sempais by comparing them to those two. For all the onsen incidents and exposed skin and all that went with them, theirs was a more loving relationship in their worst moment than these two at their best. It was a cold pursuit, Shinobu. He wanted to pursue a woman who didn't immediately open her legs to him, and she wanted to see this man prostrate himself in that pursuit. They were never in love. They were each merely something the other brat wanted, and meant to have it."

"How can you know that for certain?"

"By way of what happened next. While he had not made as much progress as he wanted, it was becoming apparent that my 'aunt' was warming towards her pursuer. My mother, from her own admission at least partly wanting what her spoiled adopted sister wanted as well, made her foolish offer to him, and he gobbled up her innocence without a second thought."

Shinobu felt compelled to speak.

"I'm glad they did. For all these pains and mistakes and missteps gave me you - the first man to truly enter my heart since Kei."

She loved seeing his overburdened face smile, and he kept a part of this as he continued.

"But my grandfather's version of events revealed several darker elements even my mother hadn't known of. You see, my father had hit a stonewall in winning the woman he truly wanted. Even their engagement hadn't seen him in her bed. He also knew that someone as flighty as her might break the engagement at any time - she already had more than once. He had seen firsthand how, whenever my mother got or had anything she didn't, it drove my 'aunt' into a frenzy."

Shinobu had some distinct flaws, but denseness was not among them - most times.

"No! That is about the most loathsome thing I've ever heard."

Arlo nodded.

"Grandfather has no direct proof of this, but it was finally the rage over my mother's pregnancy with me that seemed to have driven her adopted sister into yielding up her own bed to my father. He begged forgiveness, claimed he had been seduced by a girl who was half Lolita and half Luthor, and was forgiven just like that, because now my aunt could forever deny my mother something unique and not able to be duplicated."

"Then your aunt demanded she be thrown out?"

"Oddly, no, though it was probably nothing she objected to. It seems it was my grandmother's idea to throw her own daughter out, and to my grandfather, she once more raised the stakes to the existence of their marriage itself. He told us he nearly rebelled, nearly called her bluff and nearly prepared to live with the consequences, if any. But as the young activist he had been had always said, once you submit to an authority and buy into its lies for your own benefit, you must accept that you will always find more reasons to submit. My father encountered one setback - his father insisted on point of disinheritance that he actually marry the only worthwhile woman he'd ever brought home - which says something about his other conquests, I suppose. So my mother went off and had me, with the aid of Hinata-Dono seeing us through hard but good times. Yet my grandfather's sad tale was not done."

Shinobu was not long in wondering what could be worse.

"The marriage, as you and I glimpsed, was and remains a loveless, childless one - it seems that exposure to Hedorah may have sterilized my aunt, or maybe she was just too cold to bear fruit. When my father's father died, my father resumed his nearly-pedophilic pursuits full-time, as head of a department store chain that has not prospered under his yoke. My grandfather gave up trying to rein him in, and then one day faced a nearly-certain consequence of Hedorah - his wife, my grandmother, fell victim to a cancer that defied analysis and treatment. As she was to die soon, she unapologetically told my grandfather that her sister had never awakened from her coma, and that she made up the request to indulge her adopted niece in all things. As he had caused her pain by neglect, so would she by forcing him to abandon his dream, place his daughter - for that is what this woman saw my mother as, his daughter alone - second in all things, and then forced him to ultimately banish her over a mistake otherwise forgivable and easily concealed, if it came to that. It seems she may have known why my father seduced my mother as well. My grandfather was crushed, but after offering an apology for his neglect, soundly denounced his wife for using her sister's child as a tool of vengeance, and making her into a spoiled brat, a woman-child incapable of growing up. Since my mother obviously meant nothing to her own mother, my grandfather did not even bring her up. He told her she had dishonored and disgraced the memory of the sister she said she loved, and then left her to die alone. The daughter and son-in-law she had schemed and plotted for never once visited her."

With as much forethought as she had once kneed Kei with, Shinobu leaned over and kissed her man, and it was arguably only the lack of any privacy that broke them apart after two minutes. When she took his hand and helped him up, he made a wrong assumption.

"Shinobu, we can't leave here. Not now."

She squeezed the hand she held to the point of crunching.

"Pervert! But-thank you as well. I made a promise to Alice-San, and I intend to keep it. But we all need to get past these sad events, and remember the joyous one we're all here for."

As they went to collect Alice and her father, Hiro, inside Haruka's hospital room, Hinata the elder (who looked junior) finally found the presence to speak.

"You call my words stupid? Remember, you pups, I was there for all this. You were not."

Kei shook his head.

"Grandma, I don't doubt that your father was also named Keitaro, and that you cursed him at his gravesite. But there's no way that has anything to do with me."

Naru stared at her man in disbelief.

"Honey, your name could have displaced 'clumsy' itself as a word in the dictionary. I mean, like Grandma said, I was there and have the torn-off clothes to prove it."

But Haruka backed up her nephew in this case.

"It's like Kanako said, kid. Kei may have been a bit of a crybaby when he was little, but the guy you snuggled beside in the onsen that night was the product of his worries about Todai, and how its pursuit cost him a social life, at least a little. He was a wreck then, but I can tell you, as a little boy, he had-well-style."

Haruka was blushing, then Kei, and Naru saw that this was not the typical teasing the pair liked to subject her to. Naru turned to the only other one who clearly remembered Kei as a little boy.

"Mutsumi?"

But Mutsumi was in a meditative state, something Mitsu confirmed by waving her hands in front of Mutsumi's face.

"This bird has flown. She said something before about having a line on those Bizarros that attacked us, but I dunno."

Appearing in the corner of the room, a new voice entered the debate.

"Auntie and my brother are correct, Grandma. Keitaro only became the nerve-ridden man we once saw by way of keeping to a draining promise no one sane would hold a child to-"

Kanako's eyes darted around at the ladies of the Hinata-Sou.

"-not to mention dealing with sociopathic and often psychotic levels of unjust abuse, which would shred any man's..."

A jar came down over Kanako's head, and the lid was sealed over it. Kaolla Su smiled.

"Payback's a pain, witch!"

Kanako's foot emerged from the jar, kicking Su in the head as she broke out.

"Indeed, Princess. As you say, payback."

Su grinned as she rubbed her head.

"Okay-I like you now."

Haruka leaned over to the time-traveler version of her newborn daughter.

"Hey-does Kanako get any better in the future? Just a hint will do."

Future Hinata the younger shrugged.

"I dunno. I thought she was just a story you all told to keep me in line. You'd say, 'Behave, Hina, or Auntie Kanako will kidnap, bind and torture you.' You mean she's for real?"

Since this was about what Haruka expected, she moved to keep her mother/grandmother from swatting them all.

"Mom-tell the rest of your story. But know that you're wrong about Kei's curse."

Hinata the elder looked confused, with a central point of her narrative having been possibly refuted. But she indeed kept going, this as Mitsu and Kanako's birth-family also arrived to pay their respects. Off-balance, Hinata looked to Awa for strength, and the old man's smile made the young-looking girl/woman find her focus once more.

"The Pacific War came, and if I have spoken well of America before, I did not think very well of them then. I knew what war was, and since we had used planes for distance combat, I could not denounce them as fully as our countrymen, but the noise and destruction made me wonder if Yamamoto-Dono had been off in his estimate, and that the giant we awakened was merely a barbarian thug. Whatever we deserved, and whatever was merely gleeful revenge on the part of our now-enemy, it all seemed like Hell on Earth. The family of spirits that attends me now was forced to flee for their safety, so in succession, I sought two places I thought safe from the war. There are many reasons given for what happened in those places, some more legitimate than others. But I will say two things about what I twice witnessed. One is, that I hated America selfishly - not for the bombings or the horror, or the deaths of my people, quick and slow - but because their super-weapon could still not kill me as I wished. The second thing is this, So Kami Be Invoked - It Should Never Happen Again, To Anyone, Anywhere, Ever."

The room was filled with the shared words of response, all spoken as with one voice.

"So Kami Be Invoked."

What lay past Hiroshima and Nagasaki was perhaps as amazing as anything else Hina told of.

"A brave woman dragged me out of that place of death, and even in her coldness was warmer to me than many had been in ages. I took her place caring for the men who had taken wounds outer and inner, but due to my appearance, I needed someone to claim as my guardian. To that end, I found a fool who needed me as well - a man who missed two aircraft carriers, got himself cursed in the process, and who gave my sorry life focus once more."

Hina embraced her man, time travel and all other considerations aside.

"Though I denied my feelings for you, I thought that perhaps finally my curse was broken."

She let him sit down, Awa's face still showing concern that his wife was merely a disguised little girl.

"I learned to force myself to age, to let time do the work my father's curse denied me. But invariably, I would snap back as I slept, the effort also being a draining one. But as I fell in love with my wonderful man, I found I was able to keep myself at a later age with little or no effort. As said, I thought as I aged and lived with him, that my curse was broken. I lived a life quite full and raised a family-mistakes and triumphs blending together into what I thought were my approaching golden years."

Mitsu's mothers sat down beside their adopted sister, and smiled to be openly beside her for the first time in decades.

"I coulda told you, Hina - curses are real funny things. They almost make up their own rules."

Mrs. Konno agreed.

"Hidden depths of hate, like your father apparently had, can make even the power of love only somewhat effective."

Hina began to conclude her tale, though the details of it would be years in coming forward.

"My daughter and her man did not believe in such silly things as immortality, and so are not with us. Or should we expect them as well, future granddaughter?"

Future Hina looked down.

"I actually tried to get them, but they thought I was just crazy. Sorry, Mom."

Haruka squeezed the traveler's hand.

"The best part of them I'm holding in both arms from two different times."

Hina the elder tried to finish.

"Awa died, protecting our daughter's child from death as he went, and now my focus was gone. When I found him wrapped around Haruka after his sacrifice, I did not sleep for days. When I could go no further, I ordered Kenjiro to care for Haruka, and locked myself away. Surely enough, when I woke up, I was once more all of ten years old. I've had to use makeup ever since, with people thinking that I shrank from bone and muscle loss. Only at certain times have I actually been as old as I played on the outside - like when our government and the American FBI questioned me after my abrupt 'return'. The snap-back in those cases badly unbalanced me - and probably played a part in how vile I was towards the grandson who risked everything to bring me back."

The tale concluded, Kei sniffed and held his grandmother of the ages close.

"Forgive me, Kei. Forgive a disguised old woman who wanted death too damned much."

A part of the crybaby Kei had once been was forever left behind with a few simple words.

"All is forgiven."

Kei then pulled back a bit.

"But hey-did you really send me to the Sou for the sake of the ladies? Because I'm just not sure of-"

At that moment, Shinobu entered with Arlo and his reunited family, while Motoko wheeled Tsuruko in, holding her newborn son. Arlo looked around.

"Did we miss anything important?"

Hina the elder sighed.

"My father was fiercely opposed to the Restoration, to the end of the Shogunate..."

Tsuruko's husband Shuhei rolled his eyes and thought to himself :

*Oh, Great. It's going to be one of those looong stories...*

Next chapter : Kei belts one out and gets belted ; the future and the past say their goodbyes as thunder in the present builds ; A really long but productive summer changes everything ; and the manga watches the anime?

BTW, thanks for being more patient than I deserve - Gojirob