Disclaimer: If I actually owned any of this, why would I publish it as fan fiction? I don't, and I don't claim to. Some other lucky smeghead does.

Updated Notes: That smeghead is Ken Akamatsu. Finally managed to track down and list his frickin' name! Gah! Anyway…

Chapter 2: Sorry Don't Fix No Holes, but it's Nice to Hear It Anyway

Mitsune awoke the next morning to an empty stomach and a headache that throbbed in time with the distant sound of a hammer.

She grimaced; the hangover from the previous night was pretty light for a change, but that didn't make it any more fun than usual. As she opened her eyes and tried to adjust them to the light, she suddenly wondered where she was. She sat up quickly and found she was in her own room, lying in her own futon. She instantly regretted sitting up so quickly, as her headache only surged to new strength with the movement; had her stomach still been full, the nausea alone would have done her in at that point. Rubbing her temples to force down the pounding between them, she looked down at herself.

To her own surprise, she was loosely wrapped in a few large towels where she lay under her normal sheets, her clothes still on but her soaked shoes carefully removed and set aside nearby. Her clothing felt slightly damp and stiff, as though she'd been in the rain; thanks to the towels, though, they were mostly dry. She looked at the clock, which read 11:24 a.m. in glowing green digital light.

'Huh? How did I get here, anyway?' she thought to herself, before cringing at the resurgence of the throbbing in her head. It hurt to even think just yet, and the noise outside the window didn't help matters much, either.

A moment later, the hammering outside had stopped. Looking at her window, she saw the sun gleaming in through slightly wet panes of glass. Looking over at her desk, she noticed a tray with steaming cups of coffee and tea, a few of her favorite breakfast foods and a small bottle of aspirin laid out on her table.

'Wow,' she thought dazedly, slowly getting up to accept what had been so kindly left for her, 'this is unexpected…not that I'm complaining, to be sure! Still, I wonder who did all this?'

After years of long, drunken nights on the town, Mitsune was used to assessing the damages the morning after; right now, her body was telling her two different things. The first was that she'd been in worse shape for a hangover than this before, meaning she hadn't had the opportunity to become falling-down drunk. The second, however, was that something else had happened, though her mind was too groggy to tell her just what that was yet.

The entire place was quiet now. Where was everyone? She tried to remember; if she was right, this should be Saturday. Kaolla Su and Sarah had been planning on a trip to the zoo all week, and the last she'd heard the Mol-Molian energy ball had finally convinced Motoko to take them there. That would explain where half of the usual noise level of the building had gone. Naru must have gone shopping (she'd told Mitsune about wanting to go to a new store the day before), which explained the other half. Shinobu was normally quiet as a mouse anyway, and the only time Keitaro...

All at once, a wave of memories from the previous night hit her in a jumbled mass of revelations and impossibilities.

The last thing she'd seen was his face. That concerned look he always seemed to wear had seemed so out of place; where had he learned to fight like that? It had begun to rain, so that explained the wet clothes and shoes. But what about being in her own room? They'd been somewhere on the pathway back home when she'd passed out; had he carried her back? For some reason, the thought made her giggle, then frown. If he had, it would have made for a hell of a thing to have to explain: carrying her, a helpless and unconscious woman, back home in torn and bloody attire with nothing to show for it except a broken broom handle!

It would have been funny, if she didn't suddenly feel so damn guilty about it.

Had it been a dream? No, it seemed all too vivid and real to her; if she'd been that far gone last night, she wouldn't have made it back this far on her own. If it really had been real…then the kanrinin had just up and saved her neck big time.

She needed to think, to sort out the overload and accept the truth for what it was; if nothing else, she had to give the guy credit where credit was due, and that couldn't be done in a state of half-awake confusion!

At any rate, her stomach was now snarling and growling at her as much as her head was throbbing. Looking down at the breakfast again, she decided she'd leave the deep thinking and figuring out 'till later.

About twenty minutes later, she had consumed the food, taken the aspirin, and downed the coffee. Sipping on the tea, she recognized the flavor: a sweet herbal blend that was supposed to help with hangovers. Keitaro had given it to her once, after she'd gone particularly heavy on the sake a few months ago; he'd said something about how hangovers were mostly caused by dehydration, a fact she'd found somewhat amusing at the time. Drink sake, and become dehydrated; drink mild tea, and become rehydrated. It made sense, in a weird way, but it still seemed odd. Had he left it here for her, then?

As she pondered this, she heard the hammering start again, but only briefly. For some reason, the sound was oddly erratic and uneven to her ears; now that she could focus on it without her head mimicking the beat inside her skull too badly, it sounded almost too slow for any regular rhythm. Moving toward the window, she shielded her eyes (which were still as sensitive as her ears at the moment) and looked in the direction that the sound had been coming from.

At a distance, she spotted an unusually disheveled and haggard-looking Keitaro walking slowly and erratically away from a fresh patch in the fence around the hot springs. The inn's resident manager looked either barely awake or drunk, she couldn't really tell; either way, he wasn't holding up that well by all accounts. He was wearing a different set of clothes than she had remembered him wearing last night (they were lighter in color and weren't destroyed), which meant he must have changed for the day already. Though he didn't see her, he seemed to be moving with a single-minded focus, like he was keeping himself moving forward through sheer stubborn force of will alone.

She heard the front door of the inn opening and closing, followed by slow, heavy footsteps leading up the stairs. Holding her breath, she waited until the footsteps had passed by her door before moving across her room toward it. Carefully and quietly opening her door enough to peek out of, she saw him just as he entered his own room. Before she could follow, she heard a muffled thump, then complete silence.

Curious and increasingly concerned, she decided to check on him. After what she'd seen him go through and do the previous night, she was surprised he had been standing at all. Looking around to make sure no one was around, she quickly moved into his room and shut the door behind her.

There he lay, shoes barely off before he'd crumpled on his own futon. He breathed slowly and evenly, and was dead fast asleep. He looked worse up close than he had at a distance, with dark circles under his eyes and a pale, drawn look to his skin, yet the peaceful expression on his sleeping face seemed to suggest otherwise, as though he and his tired body were on two different planes of existence.

She knelt by him, examining him in his sleep. He wore a loose fitting shirt, and was barefoot at the moment; gingerly poking him to make sure he was out (which he was), she decided to examine what she could of his injuries. That, it seemed, was more important to her than the rest; she could ask him about how he'd saved her life, but after all she'd seen the previous night she knew better than to expect him to come out and willingly admit to having been hurt.

Sure enough, his right ankle was bruised slightly all around, though it seemed otherwise fine. She couldn't check his other leg through his pants without removing them, and even she knew there'd be no getting away with that so easily. Instead, she gently shifted the material of his loose collar and checked his shoulder. More bruises ringed the joint itself, but she didn't see any swelling there, either.

It wasn't until she shifted the material further that she saw something that really got her attention.

There it was, plain as day; the tail end of a fresh, straight scar, starting below his right shoulder and proceeding at an angle across his chest. It was healing fast, faster than she would ever have believed possible, but it clearly hadn't been there very long. Though she couldn't see much else without removing his shirt entirely, she discovered two more important things about his chest she hadn't known before: it had much more well-defined musculature than she had imagined it would, and even the small area she could look at was riddled with scars.

She almost jumped back in shock when she recognized them for what they were. The fresh slice was but one of many like it, some quite old and faded, others more recent. Even on the small portion she could see, there were more scars than she knew one person could have: straight cuts, jagged puncture marks and oddly-shaped burns dotted his skin irregularly, sometimes overlapping one another. His shoulder, too, had more than bruises, as she could see at least three separate places where it had been cut or stabbed in the past.

She turned away, on the verge of tears. She'd been somewhat prepared for the presence of the one, long scar, or at least a wound on its way to becoming one; the very fact that he had so many more like it was almost too much for her to handle. She had wanted to thank him, to ask him so many questions about what had happened; now, as she looked at his prostrate form, she realized he needed his sleep more than anything else.

'Rest easy, Kei,' she thought to herself, 'I think you need it.' On a sudden impulse, she bent over and gave him a light peck on the cheek, careful not to wake him. 'We'll talk about it later. I promise.'

Returning to her own room quietly, she finished off the last her tea in silent thought. She needed to think, and think hard. First and foremost on her brain was the puzzle of the previous night. That Keitaro had been injured, had healed himself, had saved her life, she already knew. Whether for curiosity's sake or for something else entirely, Kitsune the Fox…no, Mitsune Konno, the woman, wanted to figure out how and why.

At the very least, she wanted to know why he'd ended up looking half-dead afterwards.

As she left her room once again, she considered what she already knew from what she'd seen. He'd had a broom when she'd found him, along with a large slice out of his chest, a a swollen and bleeding jaw, and quite a few other injuries from his fall; he hadn't traveled far in his flight, but had landed pretty hard; and the last thing she'd seen him doing was repairing a fresh hole in the fence around the hot springs.

This was good for a start. She still needed more to go on than that, and that meant looking for it.

Her first real clue was the charred end of a rolled-up sock near the stairwell. As she examined the stray bit of singed clothing, she noticed still-wet paint on the upper part of the stair's railing. 'Now we're getting somewhere!' she thought to herself. Burnt objects of any sort on or near the second floor most often were the work of Kaolla Su, whose inventions frequently involved ballistic missiles and exploding machinery. Broken and freshly fixed bits of architecture almost anywhere in the building generally meant Keitaro had recently been blown through them.

Mentally trying to judge the angles, she made her way down the stairs to the bottom, where she found what was left of a pillowcase in a nearby corner. 'Yep, definitely something Su would cook up: long-range linen cannons.' Looking around, she noticed something even more telling: a freshly-repaired door to the hot springs. Peeking though the door, she noticed tiny fragments of wood and glasson the ground on the other side, indicating which way the door had been destroyed.

Now she had what she needed: a traceable path that would have taken Keitaro outside from the top of the stairs. If one of Su's inventions had hit him at the top while he was, say, sweeping the floor with a broom, he could easily have been blown through the railing to the bottom of the stairs. Knowing his luck like she did, she was willing to bet fifty to on that Naru had been standing near the bottom of it at the time. If she'd hit him through the door to the hot springs…

She winced to herself. Motoko was at her most unforgiving when she was bathing, and was never without her sword when she could help it.

'Well…that explains what sent him out there like that,' she thought almost ruefully as she considered the triple-team scenario, 'but that doesn't explain how he managed to pull himself together…or why he bothered to at all.'

The memory of his body lying there unconscious in a twisted and bloody heap chilled her once more. It still amazed her that he even managed to wake up at all before bleeding to death, let alone have the strength left to do…whatever that was that he did to fix himself up so quickly. Though the memory still made her nauseous, she forced herself to replay his actions in her mind, trying to pick out anything she could of the strange process. Two things stood out in particular: the way his hand had slightly glowed over each injury, and the way he'd reacted before, during, and after each part he'd healed. The last time she'd seen someone's hands glow like that had been when she'd last seen the inn's resident kendo fanatic charging up one of her infamous secret techniques.

It was a long shot, but she was willing to bet if Keitaro was as good a fighter as she'd seen the night before, then she wouldn't put knowing a secret healing trick in the same vein as Motoko's attacks past him, either. What was it she had called it? Channeling ki, or some such samurai talk.

But there was another thing that didn't add up, and to her mind perhaps it was the biggest thing of all. More accurately, it was a lack of something she would have expected.

If he really was that strong, to the point that he could readily defeat eight hardened criminals effortlessly (four of which had been armed and had attacked him all at once, no less) right after going through the equivalent of a major car wreck's worth of hurt (and fixing it all in what looked like an even more painful manner than the injuries themselves), then why the hell would he just allow himself to be smacked around like a human pinball by three girls for something that hadn't even been his fault to begin with in the first place?

Most guys she knew would rather die than let themselves get pushed around like that by anyone, especially when they could help it. Teach a guy to fight back, and he would. Yet Keitaro wasn't most of the guys she'd known, that was for sure. What other guy would let half his residents nearly kill him, only to get up and save another one of them from guys that epitomized to the extreme what he was accused of being daily? What other guy, presented with a legitimate excuse to take advantage of the situation, would instead bring her back safely to her own room, and then go back and fix everything he'd broken in the process before collapsing at the end of his own limits to stay awake?

On that thought, she began to wonder how long he'd actually had to spend fixing everything. He'd have to have not only cleaned and cleared the debris, but secure and repair three major pieces of the architecture quietly enough to avoid disturbing anyone. A job like that could take days, and he'd finished it in one night.

'Crap, it must've taken all night just to fix the door and the railing, let alone patch the fence up this morning! 'she thought. 'He probably hasn't even slept at all 'till just now; no wonder he looked so dead tired!'

No, scratch all that. He hadn't been the direct cause of any of that damage; he'd stayed up all night fixing the holes that three of his tenants had created at his expense, using him as their target, punching bag, and wrecking ball. They'd left him for dead without a second thought, and he'd come back to clean up their mess for them, and then only AFTER he'd taken on an entire gang of dangerous assholes just to save a girl who'd more than likely have wheedled whatever cash she could out of him as soon as give him the time of day!

He'd even carried her back in the pouring rain, at risk of re-raising the ire of the others; he'd somehow taken her to her room without raising the general alarm against himself, had even tucked her in for the night (with enough towels to keep her rain-drenched clothing from soaking her sheets, no less). At most, he'd spent a few minutes changing clothes into something that was more or less still in good enough repair to disguise his injuries; after spending his time to rest bringing everything back to normal again, he had apparently even gone as far as to bring her some breakfast and painkillers in the morning before he dropped over dead from exhaustion, even when he likely needed (and certainly deserved) the same to be done for him instead!

Kitsune felt a slight blush form on her cheeks as she considered the implications. He'd carried her to her room, unconscious! He had the perfect opportunity to do whatever he wanted to her, and clearly hadn't. The most he'd taken off was her shoes, and he'd actually covered more than he'd removed afterward! Could she even believe he would have copped a feel in the process? Somehow, with the evidence to the contrary mounting higher and higher she severely doubted that he even would try. Hell, for all the teasing and torment she'd put him through, for every accusation of stupidity and perversion they'd made about him, he'd already proven himself to be a perfect gentleman up to that point more times than she could count, and had proven it beyond all doubt in what he'd done for her last night.

'But then, Kei's always been like that, hasn't he?' she thought to herself, a sense of acute regret suddenly creeping over her. As long as she'd known him, he'd always willingly worked himself to exhaustion to ensure their comfort, even when they'd gone out of their way to make his life miserable. While she was amusing herself at his expense, he had bent over backwards to ensure everyone's comfort as best he could, hers included. Now she owed him her life on top of it all, and he'd only kept going from there. What had they ever done for him, besides use him? What had she done to deserve that much kindness from anyone, let alone from him?

What were they to him that he'd give that much of himself and yet expect and receive so little in return?

Naru had always adamantly argued that it was because he got his perverted kicks at their expense. For the first time, Mitsune felt thoroughly inclined to disagree. Of course, her still seemed to like him in a way (much though she failed to admit it even to herself), and he'd certainly always liked her; but Naru also made it abundantly clear on a daily basis she wasn't going to take those feelings past the end of her fist, and Keitaro had little hope of changing that anytime soon. Motoko, proud and honor-bound warrior that she was, loathed his very presence as a male in their home; granted, she (very rarely) acknowledged his usefulness as their kanrinin and (even more rarely) her willingness to occasionally tolerate his presence, but Kitsune doubted she'd ever admit that to his face. Su ALWAYS enjoyed a willing playmate/guinea pig, and if Keitaro was willing to allow her to blast him ten ways to Kingdom Come with her latest crazy devices she didn't seem to care to ask how or why. Sarah thought he was a dork, but didn't seem to mind him nearly as much as some of the others did; aside from being someone to occasionally tease, whack over the head, or pick on a bit for fun, the girl scarcely noticed his existence half the time. Shinobu definitely had it for him bad, though; now that Mitsune thought about it, she had good reason to. Among all of them, she alone had willingly recognized the best in him and dearly respected him like an older brother, if not more. If the young cook had been a bit older, Mitsune had no doubt Shinobu would have claimed him for herself long ago if she could. But even she couldn't do all that much for him, at least not without peeing herself with embarrassment or accidentally getting him in trouble with Naru or Motoko in the process.

And as for herself? What had Kitsune contributed to his existence in return for all he'd done?

'I've teased him, and flirted to get money out of him, and strung him around by the nose without doing a damn thing for him at al; I've played painful jokes on him, and caused him no end of trouble, haven't I?' she thought to herself with a sharp pang of guilt. 'Oh, sure, I've never gone and physically hit him like some of the others have, but I've set him up to be hit for my own amusement more times than I can count! Spit, I've been as much a bitch to him as anyone here; actually, I've been worse, 'cause I'm the only one that did it strictly by choice!'

Yet even she knew in her heart that he didn't deserve the rough treatment he received any more than she deserved having her life saved by him. He treated them all like gold, and got hurt for it daily, yet he kept coming back to help them again. 'So what if he can fix himself up that fast? NO ONE should have to go through all that…that pain. And for what? So that we can continue to pummel him, and bleed him dry, and make ourselves comfortable at his expense? He should be throwing our sorry asses out on the street for all we do to him, and yet…he doesn't. He won't. He's…not like that. '

That was the core of it, wasn't it? He was willingly suffering, making sure they didn't. He put up with their name calling and beating and roughhousing and manipulative ways, and even to the very last of his energies he went out of his way to treat them all like solid gold. They called him lazy, and yet he willingly did the chores of seven people and paid all their bills, often with no help whatsoever; they called him stupid, yet he so often knew their needs and wants and desires better than they knew themselves, while they knew next to nothing about him and never bothered to ask; they called him a pervert for his clumsiness, but he endured a far more perverse level of pain than anyone deserved, and still always came back to defend and respect their lives and wishes to the very last, doing all he could just to keep a roof over their heads and keep them all safe!

They, the girls of Hinata-Sou, had proven themselves to be what they accused him of every single day, and yet…he hadn't rejected them as they actively sought to reject him.

Shinobu entered from the dining room just then, interrupting Kitsune's train of thought for a brief but somehow merciful moment. "Oh! You're awake! G-good morning, Kitsune!" the young cook greeted her housemate.

"Good morning! Er, actually, good afternoon," Kitsune replied a little distractedly with a chuckle, glancing down at her watch. Indeed, it was after twelve, though she'd been awake less than an hour already.

"Oh, right! Umm…you wouldn't have happened to have seen where Sempai went, did you?" the younger girl asked, a strong note of worry seeping in her voice. "It's just…well, he was…"

"Up all night making repairs?" Kitsune offered pointedly, a note of regret seeping into her voice.

"Y-yes! I think he was," Shinobu responded, somewhat surprised that the woman had noticed. After all, she was the only one that usually paid any attention to the poor guy! "Do you know what happened? He carried you in last night on his back, right after…after the others…"

Mitsune raised an eyebrow. "Umm…how much did you see?"

Shinobu flushed, but continued nervously. "Well…S-Sempai was cleaning the hall upstairs, like he usually does, when Su-chan hit him with some laundry. I keep telling her she needs to be more careful, but…"

Mitsune nodded. "Good luck with that one, right?"

Shinobu nodded sadly in acknowledgement. "Anyway, from what I heard and saw…I think he must have landed on Naru, and she…well, you know how Naru-sempai can be…" she said, tears welling up at the thought of her Sempai being ricocheted through the inn as he'd been.

"I guessed as much," Kitsune admitted. "I think Motoko nailed him right after that, too."

"W-was he hurt?" the girl asked fearfully. "H-he looked terrible when he came back! His clothes were a mess! He wouldn't tell me what had happened, but…he had you on his back, and you weren't even awake!"

"He…" Mitsune sighed, trying to think of how to put it, "I think he'll be okay, but…well, I think it was a pretty rough night overall. What'd he do afterward?" the Fox asked curiously.

"Well, he…put you to bed, and wrapped you in towels and took off your shoes for you, I think," the girl said quickly, blushing, "and the last I saw he had c-changed his clothes and told me he was okay and you were going to be okay, and that he'd found you on his way back. I was going to wish him goodnight…b-but then he didn't go to sleep! He was still awake when I woke up this morning. He didn't even stop for b-breakfast, but he got food for you, I think, a little while ago. He said you'd need it more than he would, and…I haven't seen him since." The girl looked down nervously at her feet, one of which was shuffling back and forth.

'So he DID get me breakfast, on top of everything!' Mitsune thought warmly. To Shinobu, she said, "He's…he's asleep, right now, kiddo. I think we should let him rest, he had a pretty rough night.

"Y-yeah, I hope he'll be okay soon," Shinobu responded, more than a little surprised by Kitsune's sudden kindness toward him but not at all unappreciative. "I know! I'll make him something to eat when he wakes up, if I see him when he does that is!" Shinobu relaxed, just a little, settling her mind with this final idea. Smiling and blushing even more, she excused herself and went on her way.

As the girl left, Mitsune lapsed back into thought. 'Well, I guess that about confirms the whole night, breakfast and all.' A warm feeling spread through her once more just thinking about all he'd done for her, for all of them, without hesitation. For a moment, she allowed herself a small amount of pleasure in knowing just how gentle and kind he'd been to her in particular, in spite of everything she'd already put him through so far. If she was truly honest with herself, she knew, it shouldn't have really surprised her. Much as she teased him, and much though the actions of his tenants would suggest otherwise, the guy always had more manliness in his little finger than most men she had known combined, and he didn't even try to act "manly" at all. He simply acted like himself.

Plus, she thought to herself with more keen interest than before, he was cute, sweet, had an innocent caring nature, and had a smile bigger, more kawaii, and more heartwarming than a litter of soft, cuddly puppies when he was really and truly happy. She really liked to see him smile like he did, come to think of it. Not the tired, polite smiles he wore so often, but the real ones that came out when something good happened.

Then, bitterly, she remembered how she was going to tease him, to try and get even more out of him, just before she'd found him. The blatant and glaring contrast hit her like a freight train as she realized what she was going to do then, to keep on doing like the fool that she was, to someone that deserved a lot better than that. To think she'd been so blind as to treat him that badly, to fail to realize his nature sooner, was almost too much for her to handle.

She was supposed to be the clever one out of them all, and she'd missed what should have been obvious from the start. Did she even deserve forgiveness? Would he even be willing to give it to her?

Or had he forgiven her already, without her even knowing it?

Collapsing on the couch, all she could think to do now was to sit, and cry, and wait.

When Keitaro awoke to his own alarm about three hours later, he was slightly less tired than he'd been when he'd passed out but felt extremely famished instead.

It had been a long time since he'd had to fight like he had the night before, though he hadn't forgotten how by any stretch. Though the battle had been brief, it had been more taxing on his system to fight so soon after healing as many injuries as he had than he'd expected it to be. It took a while for the tiredness to set in, but it did eventually.

As he made the transition from dream to consciousness, his mind reviewed the events that had brought him to this point. When the cops had arrived to take the thugs away upon his anonymous call, he'd already carried Kitsune out of sight, not wanting to be caught up in the spotlight but having to make sure the bastards were locked up for good. By the time he was sure they were all arrested properly and he'd made it back to the inn, it had been almost midnight, and both he and the unconscious Mitsune were soaking wet. The rain disguised the blood on his shirt and pants, and washed a good amount of it off as well; thankfully, everyone but Shinobu had been asleep. The poor girl had been waiting to make sure he returned safely, and though it worried her deeply to see the two of them in their current state of disarray he managed to reassure her that they were fine. She'd let him take Kitsune up to her room without incident.

Though he'd already saved her life, he didn't feel at any liberty to disturb Mitsune any more than he had to when he put her in her bed. It had taken a good deal of courage just to get her up there, a good deal more to carefully and quietly retrieve the towels and wrap her in them without touching anything inappropriately, and it had been almost impossible to get himself to take off her shoes, even though he knew he couldn't leave her feet to soak in the soggy things all night. When she was finally settled and tucked in, she hadn't woken at all, a fact he'd counted as a blessing.

If she had awoken…well, experience told him she would tease him mercilessly, or question him thoroughly, or both. He wasn't ready for that at the time, not yet anyway.

He, meanwhile, wouldn't allow himself the luxury of sleep afterwards, not while the stair railing was dangerously broken and the hot springs was stil left in the state it had been. With his broom broken, cleanup had been more difficult than usual; he still needed to sweep the last bits from the edges of the hot springs entrance when he next got the chance, but at least there wasn't anything dangerous left for anyone to accidentally step on.

Then there was the problem of safety: with a wide-open pathway into the inn via the hotsprings newly brought into existence, the inn was vulnerable to burglary and worse. If there were any others like he'd seen and fought earlier tonight, he couldn't rest while there was a way for them to walk in as they pleased. As kanrinin, and as their friend, he'd protect his tenants and their home no matter the personal cost.

Truth be told, another fight might drain him of what little he had left at that point, but he certainly wouldn't let anyone hurt his tenants while he was alive and kicking.

He just hoped he wouldn't have to. Luckily, he didn't.

The banister had been the least troublesome, though it was difficult to do it all quietly. The door had been tougher; there was debris everywhere, both from Su's launcher and from where he'd passed through. By the time he'd fixed and rehinged the whole thing, morning had already come. He'd been almost too tired to lift the door into place again, but he'd done it.

He considered eating breakfast, or at least resting, after that, but there was still the gaping hole in the fence. He'd left it for last, knowing most of the girls would leave early and he'd need to make noise to properly patch the hole. Before he'd gone to hammer in the new boards, he'd noticed that Mitsune had yet to wake up. Knowing she'd be hungry and hung over (he'd figured out by then that she had seen him heal and fight the previous night, and had noted the smell of vomit when he'd tried to catch up with her when she'd run away), he decided to fix her breakfast before he made enough noise to wake the dead in patching the fence.

Hopefully, the gesture would help her forgive him for making noise when she was still hung over. If not…well, that was just how his luck usually ran, anyway.

He'd entered her room quietly with the tray full of food, coffee, a tea good for post-drinking headaches, and a bottle of aspirin. He'd seen her there just as he'd left her, still asleep in the morning light and looking as peaceful and full of beauty as he'd ever seen her. Though he didn't want her to wake up with him gazing at her (he was going to be in enough trouble as it was, and didn't want to add to it), he had to take a moment and observe the woman he'd rescued just hours earlier. Of course, he well knew what she was like to him: a tease and a flirt, always looking to get out of rent or get money for more sake, even getting him into trouble at times. But that was just who she was, and he didn't mind that. When she did finally wake, he knew, she'd probably either tease him unmercifully or blackmail a year's worth of room and board out of him to keep her from telling everyone about what had happened, but right then, he was too tired and too glad she was still alive to care about that.

It surprised him a bit that she would mean that much to him, and yet he already knew he'd have done the same had it been any of the girls in the inn, or any friend of his, or anyone in need of his help as she'd been. That, after all, was who he was, and he wasn't about to alter that part of him for the world. Still, he was somehow glad to have been there to help her.

Though he hadn't wanted to leave, he knew there was work to be done, and he had to do it. By the time he'd finished patching the fence, he was finally drained past his own limits. Between the long string of rough days he'd already been through, the lack of sleep, the fight, the last set of injuries, and the all-night repair work, he could barely stand on his own feet. That he made it to his own room and into his bed at all was nothing short of miraculous, and would never have happened had his will to not fall asleep where someone would find him not been so completely adamant.

He still ached in a dozen different places, but at least he'd be able to make it through the rest of the day without falling over backwards. He'd rest better tonight, he promised himself. Hopefully, he'd make it through this day without any more major incidents.

Right now, his stomach was ready to eat him if he didn't feed it something else, fast. All else would have to wait; if the growling got any louder than it already was, his tenants would think he was keeping a grizzly bear as a pet.

To his surprise, he found Shinobu apparently waiting for him in the kitchen; when he got there, she practically jumped out of her skin to get him something to eat, in spite of her surprise at seeing up "so early." Looking at his watch confusedly, he made sure it was in fact three in the afternoon as he'd thought, and not three at night. Suddenly, he realized what she meant.

"Oh! You mean…early as in…"

"I…um, I thought you just got to sleep a few hours ago!"

"Uhh, yeah, I did…had a lot to get done, I guess." He scratched his head sheepishly, mildly trying to figure out just how she would know that. Deciding it probably didn't make a difference, he added, "Don't worry; I got enough to last on. I guess my stomach needs food more than I need sleep." His snarling abdomen punctuated his point.

"T-that's okay, Sempai, I'm just glad you're alright," she said with relief, a half second before moving like lightning to get him some food to disguise her growing blush. Though Keitaro didn't know it, Shinobu reserved her own opinion on the matter, and believed he was getting too little rest as it was to be healthy.

Once he had finished off a rather massive quantity of her cooking, he helped her clean the mess and thanked her profusely for the food. The girl initially protested, telling him he should rest, but he insisted anyway. Once done, she simply blushed and mumbled something he couldn't hear, before scurrying from the room for parts unknown.

Scratching his head again and grabbing a can of soda from the fridge, his mind turned to his next dilemma: what the hell he was going to say to Kitsune when he next saw her?

Things like what he'd done last night, he knew, begged some explanation, and the Fox alone out of all of his tenants would never settle for less than everything she could possibly find out from him if she got curious. How much had she seen? He knew she'd seen him fight; had she seen the rest as well? He knew someone had been nearby when he'd landed, and had taken off at a run when he noticed they were there. Had it been someone else, or was it her? He couldn't know for sure, but considering she'd seen him do things none of them had ever seen him do already, he knew she probably wouldn't rest again until he had told her everything about it in as gory detail as he could, and then some.

Maybe, if he was really lucky, he'd get her to agree not to tell the others about any of it, at least not yet. At least, she might be willing to bargain with him and only get half a year's rent free, instead of one or two, since he had saved her life.

Maybe.

One way or the other, he knew he'd have to tell her something eventually. And all things considered, he'd be best off telling her the truth up front and going from there, dangerous and disastrous as that might prove to be. Not telling her the truth wasn't an option, he knew, and trying not to tell her would only make matters that much worse. Lost in thought, he went into the common room and sat on the couch, absent-mindedly moving to open his soda can.

"Heya, Keitaro." Kitsune greeted him with a wink from where she sat on the other side of the couch, making him jump about a foot in the air and scramble to catch his unopened soda can again.

"AAAACK! I mean, um, hi, Kitsune, heheh," he said as he landed, trying to re-swallow his own heart back down his throat. How the hell did they always manage to surprise him like that?

Kitsune just giggled to herself, seeing his startled reaction. "Too much caffeine?"

Keitaro snorted slightly. "Nah, not enough sleep. Makes me jumpy. Sorry about that, anyway." He looked a little flustered, not exactly sure what to say.

She snickered. "Don't worry, I don't bite sleepy heads…not hard, anyway."

He nodded mildly, then did a double take at her words before going cherry red. 'SOOO easy to tease!' Mitsune thought to herself, snickering even harder. "No, seriously, though, don't worry about it; you looked like you needed your rest anyway."

"Uh, yeah, I guess so…wait, when did you see me? I thought you were asleep at…ah! I mean, uh…" he started to stammer, his brain catching up with his mouth about half a second too late to stop him from slipping up.

Mitsune, however, didn't press that issue…at least not yet. "Oh, I was, I'm sure. I saw you from my window when you were stumbling around after fixing that fence earlier. That was awfully kind of you to leave me breakfast like that, you know," she added with a hint of a smile in her voice.

"Oh, right, yeah. Um…sorry if I woke you or anything. I wanted to wait until you were up so I wouldn't bother you. I mean, you did have a rough night and all, so…" He shifted nervously; when she didn't respond, he continued, "Umm…actually, I'm sorry I didn't check up on you before now. Are you okay? Were you hurt?"

"I'm fine, Kei, really. But there is something I wanted to talk to you about, you know," her voice became more serious as she spoke, "about what you did last night."

Keitaro's heart sank in his chest as his mind began bracing itself for the inevitable. "I know, I'm sorry; I didn't mean to offend you or take advantage, I just didn't want to leave you somewhere that wasn't safe, and it was raining…I know you usually like to take care of yourself, but…" His shoulders hunched slightly as his head fell.

Kitsune took full stock of his reaction. He was, she suddenly realized, waiting for the axe to come down on his head any moment, and somehow watching him squirm like that held none of the same humor it would have for her in the past. If anything, it now made her die a little inside to see him preparing for the worst like that. 'He's waiting for me to pull something on him, like I usually would,' she mused. A part of her was dismayed to realize that, at any time before now, he'd have been right to do so. Indeed, the part of her brain that was good at schemes had already tried forming any number of ideas to get something out of the situation from him.

She'd been fighting with that side of herself into submission several hours ago, and she wasn't about to give it free reign now. Though it ran contrary to her nature, she was not letting the Fox within her have its way any longer.

"Listen to me, Kei," she started, making sure she got his full attention before continuing, "Everything you did last night and this morning was in no way offensive or wrong, and I certainly don't think it was. I'm not going to do anything to you because of it, or at all for that matter, that is meant to hurt you in any way."

Keitaro looked at her with surprise, as though an axe meant for his neck had missed him completely. "W-what?"

She looked him square in the eye. "What I mean to say is: thank you, Keitaro, for saving my sorry ass back there. I truly appreciate it, and I certainly don't deserve it from you."

The kanrinin blinked, taken aback. Of all the things he'd expected to hear from her, "thank you" hadn't been one of them. Whether because he was so used to going unthanked by everyone or simply because he'd been anticipating merciless hell for having physically carried her around like that, the idea that she'd be openly grateful for it hadn't crossed his mind.

She looked aside suddenly. "But I want to know…why would you go through all that…pain…if you can defend yourself like that? It doesn't make any sense to me. And don't try claiming you're not hurting, Kei; I saw you there, where you fell."

Keitaro felt himself deflate entirely. She'd seen everything.

He looked down at his hands. Hands he'd scrubbed with, healed with, could hurt others with if he wasn't careful; hands he constantly tried to use for the good of others.

Hands he'd used just last night to break bones and twist flesh, to protect her. Hand that were now powerless to change the loss of the one secret he'd tried so hard to keep to himself, for the sake of the ones he wished to protect.

He sighed, allowing his eyes to slowly close. "Because…I'd rather be hurt, than hurt someone I care about, Mitsune."

She looked at him in shock. "But…why? Why would you let yourself suffer like that? Why wouldn't you stop us from hurting you, when you could do it easily? I saw what happened to you last night, Kei; those three could've killed you, and never thought twice about doing it! I figured out how it happened, too, and I can tell it wasn't your fault to begin with."

He looked surprised. "How?"

She shrugged. "The only explanation that made any sense to me was for Su to have blasted you down the stairs, Naru to have punched you into the hot springs, and Motoko to have sliced you back out of it again. Let me guess: you were cleaning up, as usual, and didn't even see it coming until you were already being used as a human pinball, right?"

He looked at the path he'd taken again over his shoulder. Considering it, he realized she was right. "I…guess so, but…Su was just being Su, and I did land on Naru kind of badly, and Motoko was using the hot springs at the time…I mean, I know I didn't start it or anything, but it's still my fault for…"

"And I guess, Kei," she noted, cutting him off, "that you could have kept yourself from going through it at all, if you'd chosen to, simply by fighting back somewhere along the way."

He went to speak, then stopped. She saw his shoulders sag even further, and his face fall. "You're right…I could. But what then, Mitsune?" He looked up at her, a look in his eye she'd never seen before: the look of a haunted man. "Supposing I had 'defended myself' against one of them. You saw how I fight, didn't you? I could seriously hurt one of them in the process of keeping them from doing the same to me, only they wouldn't have the opportunity to bounce back from it afterward! Who would I have gone up against? Su? A young and eccentric girl just looking to play with someone? Or maybe Naru? A woman who already feels insecure around guys enough as it is, and has to live with one that can't walk ten steps without tripping into her? Does she really deserve to pay for that at my hands? It's bad enough that she has to deal with that as it is; I don't want to add injury to insult! How about Motoko? Sure, she might be a warrior, but that doesn't mean she isn't human. I could easily stop her blade, but what then? They all bleed, Kitsune; so do I, and so do you. The only difference is that I can take plenty of injuries in stride, and be alright before I get back. None of you can say the same, and I don't want you to have to go through all that when I can do it myself, by my own choice."

"But…why? We've done nothing to deserve it, Kei. Why let us tear the spit out of you and act like it's your fault all the time?"

"Because I'm still the kanrinin and I'm not going to walk away from my friends when they need me! It doesn't matter how I feel, or if it hurts me, or if I'm right or wrong; you are still my friends! Even if I screw up all the time and pay for it twice what I 'deserve', I can't just up and quit on those I care about, and I certainly can't let you get hurt on my watch! If I were better at my job, I wouldn't have to go through half of it, anyway! I'm not worried about what it costs me, just whether or not it helps you!"

Mitsune was thoroughly, genuinely stunned. Not necessarily by his answer, which admittedly was just like him and she damn well knew it.

What shocked her was that he still called them, and her, his friends.

They'd treated him worse than shit! They'd given him next to nothing but heartache and injury on a daily basis, and he gave them everything he had anyway! "B-but…how can you even consider US as friends, Kei?" she demanded. "We've NEVER done anything to deserve your friendship, not even once! Two of us have tried their level best to kill you for so much as looking in their direction, and the rest of us have either used you for target practice, slave labor, or personal plaything without consideration for how you feel, whether you have wants or needs or desires in life, or what we can do for you for a change! Do you know why I was even there, last night? Do you know why I finally saw what our crap was doing to you? I was looking for you, trying to find out how you managed your whole 'immortality thing' just to amuse myself, at your expense! And lo and behold, I find out that all the times I'd been amusing myself were leaving you lying in a twisted, broken heap, left to pull yourself together again bit by agonizing bit! You've been a friend to us, and we've never, EVER treated you like one in return!" She began to weep, unable to look him in the eye for her shame.

Keitaro's reaction to her tears was one of confusion, regret, and unconcealed guilt and terror at having brought her (to his mind) to this state by his own actions. "I-I'm sorry, Kitsune! I didn't mean to upset you, I didn't mean to hurt you… ohnopleasedon'tcrypleasedon'tcryIdidn'twanttohurtyourfeelingsI'msososorry…" he babbled to her, his body caught somewhere between trying to calm and reassure her and kneeling with his head hung in apologetic shame for what he perceived to be his transgressions toward her.

"N-no Kei, don't apologize, it's not your fault, it never was," she said, pulling herself together enough to look at him for a moment. She couldn't stand to hear that fear and shame in his voice, not when she knew he wasn't the least bit at fault. She could see what their abuse had done to him, how her abuse had hurt his innocent nature so deeply.

This had to change, right now. She couldn't stand it anymore.

"Keitaro Urashima, I…I apologize to you, right now and in full, for every time I ever borrowed money off of you, got you in trouble on purpose or by accident, played tricks on you or had fun at your expense, or used you for my own benefit. I have no excuse for being like that, or for how I've treated you. You're not stupid to me, or perverted, or weak, or any of that crap I and everyone else have always tried to lay on your shoulders where it doesn't belong. I…I've never met a nicer, gentler, kinder person than you, or a better friend, and I probably never will again, either. You're the best gentleman I've ever known, and I…I don't deserve your friendship, or even your forgiveness or consideration."

"Don't say that, Mitsune Konno!" Keitaro said suddenly, a look of earnest seriousness in his eye like she'd never seen him have before as he kneeled more fully in front of her. "Of course you deserve it! You all deserve it, and you most especially of all. You're smart, and thoughtful, and beautiful; you're even willing to let me explain myself if I get out of line in your eyes, whether you tease me about it later or not. Isn't that reason enough? If you've ever thought anything I had or am was worth going after, even as little as the money in my wallet, then at the very least I know I'm worth something to you and you're willing to admit as much to get it, which is probably more than I can say about most people to begin with! Honestly, I can't believe I've been lucky enough to know any of you as well as I have, and you most of all. There's nothing to forgive, Kitsu-chan, and if there was I'd forgive you anyway. I always have, and I always will. I will put up with whatever I have to, and more if I have to, if it means I can be part of your lives; I can only hope you can forgive me when I fall short along the way."

She met his gaze with awe. She'd never really considered herself to be much more than a lazy drunk fox willing to get what she wanted out of everyone else without a care in the world, had even been proud of it in the past. Now, when she realized her carelessness had caused others to suffer tremendously as a result, when she felt the most vulnerable about herself and who she was and how she had been, Keitaro had not only instantly forgiven her, but had even gone so far as to defend her to herself! He'd given her the most glowing description of her own nature she'd ever heard and told her it was what he'd really thought of her; what he'd told her had just made her melt inside.

It occurred to a part of her consciousness that, somewhere in the past minute, their faces had come to within about a foot of each other. Her gaze went across his form, unconsciously taking in the subtle details. Though his face was a study of human emotions in competition with each other, his eyes were another story. Framed by his glasses, rimmed with black circles from lack of sleep and stress, they still radiated a warmth and softness matched only by their depth. They were eyes that had already seen too much for a lifetime, yet still shone brightly from their cores.

Through those eyes, she saw him as he truly was, and for the first time she found herself acknowledging with a full, sober, conscious mind that she really liked what she saw in him.

Just then, her body acted of its own volition. She didn't realize what it was doing, until her lips were pressed against his. It startled her, and him even more so, to be suddenly engaging in a kiss, yet the will to pinpoint the reason why and how she had suddenly taken the action she had was lost and completely overridden by a wave of sensation, emotion, and yearning that said action was now generating in both parties. Conscious thoughts failed to take form just now, and her mind blanked and her body responded on instinct.

A minute later, when the two finally broke contact with their faces flushed and their breathing rapid and erratic, she could tell the sensation had been mutually felt. "…wow!" was the first thing that came from both their lips. She smiled at his brain-on-hold expression in her own pleasantly dazed state, as her mind struggled to reconnect itself with reality again. When it finally did, several thoughts flashed through it on each other's heels: 'Why did I just kiss him, all of a sudden? That wasn't like me,' followed by 'Holy crap, I just kissed him, and it was fantastic!' and finished with 'I'm doing that again; whatever the reason was, it's good enough for me!'

Keitaro's mind, meanwhile, had less success at coming up with anything as complex as coherent thought, so the end result went something like this: 'Wha…huh…why…did she just…holy smegging…wow...am I dead?' Still, like Mitsune, his body took this opportunity to act on its own volition, free as it was from his normal level of mental self-control; when she went to kiss him again, he met her halfway.

Both Keitaro and Mitsune, however, snapped back to reality when they heard the distant screeching arrival of the local bus outside about a minute later. Fear and sudden comprehension brought both minds back into the present, as they realized that in less than thirty seconds their sudden moment of blissful expression would be seen by all four of the returning Hina-Sou residents, two of which likely would not hesitate to put the kanrinin in orbit if they saw him anywhere in the same room alone with her, let alone kissing her!

In that moment, a real change occurred. In a situation like this in the past (with the exception of having just kissed him so deeply), Kitsune would most likely have kept him from escaping, thus essentially guaranteeing he'd be punished. Now, she feared for his personal safety, and found herself encouraging his escape, much to his surprise and relief. She hurriedly told him to meet with her again later at the first place and time she could think of: a nearby diner, at around lunchtime the next day. He agreed immediately, and had precisely ten seconds to make tracks toward one end of the house while she made for the other.

By the time Naru, arms full of packages, and Motoko, following beside her, were all but knocked down through the doorway by the overly energetic Su and Sarah (who, at the moment, were pretending to be various combinations of zoo animals), neither the kanrinin nor the Fox was in sight.

Sighing in relief back in his room, Keitaro thanked his lucky stars that he'd been ahead in doing all the chores for that week. Adrenaline receding from his system, he tried to sort out all that had happened, but he couldn't stop thinking about Mitsune kissing him. She kissed him—him !—and had done so willingly. Twice! Passionately, even! Better, he hadn't ended up halfway across town afterward, had somehow kept himself from getting the nosebleed of the century, and had even been allowed to escape when she clearly had the chance to get him a shiny one-way ticket to the next island courtesy Narutoko Airways! She was even sober at the time!

He did, however, note one thing: an odd weight in his hands. Confused, he looked down to see that in all the talking and excitement, he'd never even opened his soda! He sighed to himself, allowing the smallest of chuckles at the very strange day he'd been having before cracking it open.

A.N.: Well, that was a heck of a rewrite I just did. I kept most of the end intact as it was, but the first two thirdsish I had to adjust a few details to be more to what I have in mind. Side references include Red Dwarf for the useful throw-in curse word "smeg" (other uses: smeghead, smegger, smegging, smegged up, smeg off, smeg in hell, and others), although I think that's it. To those reviewers I have heard from: thank you for noting the spelling error on "Maehara", I'll have to fix it later. Also, be patient, I like to take my time and try to get things written as well as I can first, and since I've written the later chapters there have been a number of small details I need to change or fix to make things flow the way I want them to. Nothing major, just a few well-placed hits. Aside from that, all I can guarantee you is that I like the idea of a Keitaro that can kick major ass under the right circumstances, and the reasons he would be able to do so but also why he'd choose not to, i.e. where he draws his limits so to speak. Next chapter: further developments, twists, and explanations of certain things. That, and fast moving objects that crash, burn, and explode. (What can I say? This is Love Hina. Romance is hazardous to your health in this universe!)

A.A.N.: Revised, at last! Quite a few things I adjusted this time around, mostly in the way certain things were said and done. The hardest part was getting the early part of Keitaro's conversation with Kitsune to flow the way I wanted it to; I didn't quite like the way I'd had it before. Hope you all like it anyway!