Disclaimer: I do not own Love Hina. Same goes for Cowboy Bebop, Halo, Trigun, and any of the half a dozen or so other series and works I make direct and/or passing references to in the process of my pitiful, flailing attempts at decent creative writing. It's a miracle I'm even managing to get back into the groove of it, considering I've been newly and freshly employed over the past month and a half or so.

So smeg off, copyright lawyers, as I pull on whatever I damn well feel like in order to tell my story and any other I feel like writing. I make my money doing actual work, not writing fan fiction.

A.N.: I apologize to any who were waiting for this (and future) chapters to come out. I've had most of this one done for a while now, but unfortunately the downside of getting hired at a new job is that you have very little time to work with. Hence, this got shoved to the side for the last few months.

Now that said job is practically over, I have time to write again. Joy! I think I will be finishing this fic in the near eventual future, things are building to that point after all. I don't know how many chapters it will take, but I think it will be at least a few more depending on how the story flows when I write it. Once it's finished, I had a couple more interesting ideas to work with for fics, including a Neon Genesis Evangelion crossover of epic proportions and surprising connection with another series that takes up a great deal of my time, as well as an (epic, of course) modern take on the Legend of Zelda that could become very interesting indeed…but we'll see how it goes.

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Chapter 12: Always Know Where Your Towel Is

Naru had barely slept the entire night. Twice, it had been noises coming from the room next door to her, currently occupied by Motoko, that had jarred her awake; but what the swordmaiden was doing over there at three in the morning wasn't what kept her up most of the night.

Like her other housemates, this was the second night she'd spent in what she thought was a horribly cramped excuse for a room. For all the things that had been wrong with her own attic-level room in the Hina-Sou, she had at least had adequate space. Now, she had a room half taken by the bed, which was pretty small to begin with. She knew little more about this place than she had when they'd arrived the previous night, tired and a little intimidated by all the secrecy and heavy artillery being carried about. That both Haruka and Motoko's sister, Tsuruko, were not only a part of the whole crazy setup but were high-ranking and important members to boot had been a shock, as neither she nor Motoko had ever heard of any of it until now.

It hadn't ended there, either; by noon of the next day, she'd already seen a number of people she knew, or that one of the other girls knew. They'd met up with Kaolla Su's sister, Amalla Su, and their "brother," Lamba Lu (whom Naru had almost mistaken for Keitaro from behind, only to find out otherwise a moment later—luckily before she'd done anything to him); then it had been Mutsumi Otohime, who had unfortunately been just as surprised and in the dark as Naru herself; and toward the evening, she'd even spotted what had to have been Keitaro's two best friends walking down a hall like mismatched twins. She hadn't managed to ask them yet, but given the fact that they would be even more likely to be hanging around Keitaro than anyone else she knew of (and weren't), she was willing to guess they hadn't seen him, either.

None of them, in fact, had seen either Keitaro or Kitsune since they'd arrived. Haruka had assured her that a message to come had been sent to them and that she expected they would be there by the evening. After waiting for hours, they still hadn't come. Others had, however; in groups of one or more, people had been arriving all day at a great rate, and the place was becoming increasingly crowded. Not all came in the best of shape, either; many had injuries of one kind or another, and when she'd accidentally found the place's medical ward, she'd seen quite a few more getting treated for everything from scrapes and burns to gunshot wounds. With each hour, the mood got a little grimmer about the place, and her own dread had only increased when Haruka, wearing the heavy S.W.A.T.-style gear of the fortress's makeshift little army, had sent her and the others to get rest half an hour before midnight, saying only that she'd be waiting for them when they arrived.

Yet her sleep had been fitful at best; much though she tried to ignore it, the fact that two of her friends, one which she didn't trust around girls at all and the other she would be lucky to fully trust at all with a lot of things, were off somewhere together with armed thugs prowling about, looking for at least one of them in particular.

In the morning, she had all but murdered her alarm clock without realizing it. By the time she awoke again, breakfast had already ended. Scowling to herself for oversleeping, she realized the only thing that had awoken her was a loud, insistent knock on her door.

"Who is it?" she asked grumpily as she fumbled her way to the door.

"It's me, Motoko. Are you awake?" the swordmaiden's voice answered through the barrier.

Sighing, Naru replied, "I guess I am now." She opened the door to find her friend in a somewhat disheveled-looking black outfit. Her eyes looked a little red and bleary, like she hadn't slept well, either. A bag was in her hands, a small whisp of steam coming out the top.

"I took note that you had not arisen this morning with the others, and may not have eaten breakfast," Motoko said, "and so gained permission to bring you some instead. The mess hall closed a short while ago."

Rubbing her eyes, Naru said, "Uhh…yeah, I didn't really sleep well last night. Thank you for grabbing this, though, I appreciate it. How was yours?"

"I ate my meal quite late. My rest was…somewhat lacking as well," she admitted. "May I speak with you a moment, while you eat?"

Naru's stomach rumbled slightly. "Sure. Go right ahead, Motoko."

Motoko nodded wordlessly, shutting the door behind her. As Naru gratefully accepted and dug into the food, she sat next to her, looking lost in thought for a moment.

"They are here," she said, finally.

Naru nearly choked on her food. "You mean…! When? Where!?"

"Late last night."

"How do you know?"

Motoko sighed, closing her eyes. "I…could feel his presence. His ki, I should say. I thought that he was nearby, but he was on the other side of the base. I was confused at first; I had understood from Haruka's explanation, and from the surveillance video, that he had not yet revealed more than a fraction of his ki's full strength to us in person. Now…I can sense it almost anywhere in the base, and it has been fluctuating in strength greatly."

Naru was suddenly very awake. "Where is he? Where's Kitsune? Who was with them? Are they okay?"

Motoko motioned for her friend to calm down. "They are, to my knowledge, both here. I did not sense her until I had already met with Urashima-san himself. I do not know who brought them or how, but they were here shortly after midnight."

"What? When did you see him?" Naru asked, surprised.

"About three-thirty in the morning last night."

Naru blinked. Suddenly, the movements in Motoko's room were beginning to make sense to her. "I thought you said they were here after midnight."

"They were. I did not seek them out until later."

"Weren't they asleep by then?" she inquired incredulously.

"Yes, they were." Motoko looked down and away, suddenly. "Naru…remember when I told you yesterday that I could not take Haruka's word fully to heart concerning his actions toward us? That I did not trust her explanation?"

Naru nodded. "Yeah, and I told you I didn't buy it, either. Why? What about it?"

"I found out she was indeed telling the truth last night."

Naru blinked. "Huh? How?"

"Haruka-san told us he was capable of defending against our attacks if he so chose to do so at any time," Motoko said evenly, "but that he was unwilling to do so against one of us. I tested her claim by attacking him in disguise, at a time when he would not expect a confrontation to occur. If there was to be any truth in it, he would repel the assault and retaliate full force, viewing me as an assassin rather than as someone he knew."

Naru paled. "You did WHAT!? Are you crazy!? What if someone spotted you and thought you were an intruder or something? They could've shot you!"

"I took as much care as I could to ensure otherwise, Naru," Motoko assured her. "And I was not caught, not by them. I was willing to take that risk from the outset; I had to know for certain."

"So…what happened?"

"I tracked him to his room, intent on confronting him. Evidently…he sensed me coming, though as I'd hoped he did not know it was me. It surprised me that he was ready when I'd arrived, but I did not hold back in my attack. He was armed with what appeared to be an odd form of dai-katana, but he did not use it. He did not have to." She frowned, replaying the encounter in her mind for the hundredth time. "The moment I attacked, he…disarmed and threw me. By the time I had regained my feet, he recognized Shisui, and thus recognized me."

Naru was shocked. "You mean…you went all out, and he didn't even break a sweat!?"

"Yes. He defeated me essentially unarmed and without injury to either of us. By his bearing and skill in the encounter, I do not doubt that he would have done the same, regardless of the manner in which I attacked him. If he had wanted to…he could easily have killed me."

"How do you know?"

"It is…difficult to explain," Motoko said in a somewhat detached voice, "but it is a matter of comparison. The difference in skill between him and me was measured by direct comparison through battle, and though it pains me to admit it, his was the greater by a great margin, greater potentially than that between myself and my sister. Had he drawn his weapon, it may have been greater still."

"What did he do next?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all." Motoko sighed, a look of frustration appearing on her normally calm face. "Once he had Shisui, he knew who I was. He could easily have struck me down at that point, but he did not. He defeated me in level combat, and defeated my purpose for engaging him in it in one fell swoop. He returned me my weapon, and never drew his own. He…showed me the scars we have dealt him, Naru. He is covered in them."

"S-scars?" she asked, somewhere between disbelief and horror. "But he doesn't have any—"

"None that are readily visible, no. But you have not seen his chest, his back," Motoko replied quietly.

"What!? How perverted! Do you mean to tell me—"

"I had only a brief look at them, Naru. Considering the circumstances, perversion had little to do with it. I sought the truth, and he showed it to me. His limbs are relatively untouched, but his torso showed marks of proof too numerous for me to count."

Naru sat back, stunned. Motoko was a proud and skilled warrior capable of incredible feats with the sword; her sister was lightyears ahead of her in skill, to the point that she feared to take the woman on at all. By all rights, she should have easily shown up that baka, crazy though her idea to do it had been; yet from what she was now telling her, Keitaro was better than both her and her sister, sword or no! Never in her wildest dreams had she ever expected to hear Motoko make such outrageous claims, yet she knew the young Aoyama kendoist would never make them in jest. She was, as always, deadly serious.

And that meant both she and her friend had been wrong about him. They had judged him to be almost impossible to hurt but very easy to defeat, when it had been the other way around the entire time. She, herself, had known him to be kind and friendly, often to an exceptionally high degree. He was also about the clumsiest pervert known to mankind! And yet…if he had, as Motoko said, been so able to stop their punishments, why hadn't he? Even Naru had to admit to herself that there were times he had not been truly in the wrong, and yet even then, he'd been the one to apologize afterward.

How many times had he come back, hunched over and apologetic to the two of them alone? Had Motoko's sword really cut him that often? Had her punch done as much damage to him than to the Hinata? It was a scary thought; so many parts of the building had been rebuilt so many times from him going through them, it was a wonder there was anything left of it that hadn't been!

And now she knew for certain that he'd been doing the same thing to himself.

She didn't know how to feel, at first. Rage and regret boiled and battled within her, neither gaining the upper hand. She wanted to find him, beat him to a pulp for lying to them, for hiding these things about himself for so long. Yet at the same time, she began to comprehend just how much of it had been her own fault for doing exactly that all too often. Fear sliced through her, as she realized he could easily kill her for her actions at any time. Relief and guilt flooded her when she realized he would not, that he would most likely forgive her for them immediately if she asked, that in all likelihood he'd already done so long ago.

Motoko sat by her, saying nothing but watching the emotions play over Naru's face. Finally, she said, "Though it may be of little comfort to you, I thought you should at least know what I have learned. I am sorry."

For a moment, she said nothing, staring ahead into space. "It's all true, isn't it?" she finally asked.

"There is now no doubt in my mind. Do you recall the shirt? "

"What shir…oh, right. That shirt." She frowned, uncomfortable.

"The freshest scar on his chest that I saw matches the angle and size of the cut on that shirt exactly. It is not the only example that could be made, either."

Naru shuddered. "You…he…but…?"

Motoko looked visibly shaken, the memory of what she'd seen replaying yet again in front of her eyes. "We have hurt him, Naru, more times than I can count. He hides the marks well, and heals them better than most, but they are there, and we are the ones that put them there."

For a long time, the two were silent, lost in their own thoughts and epiphanies.

At least, until Naru remembered one, small question that had been bugging her.

"What about Kitsune?"

Motoko frowned. "I…cannot say for certain. She was nearby when I encountered Urashima-san. It is difficult to say where, exactly; at close proximity, his ki was too powerful to clearly sense that of others through accurately. At the time, I was not exactly focusing upon Mitsune's presence, either. However…"

Naru looked at her curiously. "However what?"

"There were…oddities that I noted. Unless I am mistaken, she was awake at the time as well. There was…concern in her aura. It was unusual for her, and notable. But the moment he had returned to his quarters, the concern dissipated."

"Huh? Was she watching from another doorway or something?" Naru asked, confused.

Motoko shook her head. "No…and unless I am mistaken, the doors are too thick to hear through clearly. Aside from Urashima-san, the hallway was empty, and no doors were opened save his own the entire time. The feelings seemed…too directed, too specific to be mere coincidence. It was almost as if…but no, it does not make sense to me."

"What are you saying? What doesn't make sense?"

"The only explanation for it I can think of…is that they were in the same room together."

"WHAT!?!?"

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Seated outside the mess hall, Noriyasu Seta was casually cleaning an extra Magnum Research Baby Eagle handgun he'd managed to pick up with his other gear when he'd visited the armory the previous night.

He smiled lightly to himself. It had been a pretty busy night, granted, what with getting everything organized for today. Still, he'd have done this basic servicing last night, but he had been in no mood to pick that task over the one Haruka had set him to, in private. Normally, he was too dense, busy, and distracted with everything to really clue in on what she wanted, often to his own detriment.

Last night, thankfully, it hadn't been one of those times. Or two.

Or three, counting the early morning as well.

His own personal firearm was already reloaded and ready at his side. The Baby Eagle was practically identical to his own Jericho in every regard; save for a slight difference in its finish and the name on the side, it was the same gun. Parts of his own model even incorporated parts made for this second gun, a necessity dictated by the caliber of bullet he was using.

He still preferred his own, but at least he wouldn't notice any difference in a firefight when he used them.

Cocking and testing the hammer on the empy firearm once more, he loaded a fresh clip with bullets in one hand and checked the iron sights of the weapon with the other, carefully looking down the barrel with his finger off the trigger. As he rotated his line of sight across the opposite wall, he saw the doorways to the mess hall open outwards and lifted the mock aim to the ceiling instead.

Satisfied, he clicked the full clip in place and holstered the weapon at his opposite side. He'd already traded up his old vest for a stripped-down version of the fortress's custom riot gear; he'd left out both the helmet and the uniform, opting instead for his usual semi-formal attire underneath and a long, specially made labcoat overtop. He'd moved his sword to his back, and used the better-organized pouches, pockets, and clasps of his borrowed gear to store much of the rest.

Officially, he wasn't a full ranking member of the base's guard forces; his specialty was still rooted in the field and under it, so-to-speak.

Either way, they still trusted him with their best toys anyway.

About a minute later, he saw two people he'd been waiting for leave the oversized cafeteria with two others he didn't immediately recognize in tow, both grinning and arguing at a great rate with each other. The former pair stood fairly close together, one concealed in the cloak Seta had sent him, the other much less; the latter pair could have been brothers.

"Ah, there you are!" he addressed them immediately. "Good morning to you both, and to your friends, unless I am mistaken?"

"You are not mistaken, Seta-san," Keitaro replied cheerfully. "These two jokers are Shirai and Haitani from my school. Guys, this is Professor Noriyasu Seta of Toudai."

The two turned to regard Seta with surprised looks. "This the guy that brought you here?" Haitani asked.

"What…exactly is he a professor of? Tactical warfare?" Shirai inquired.

"Archaeology!" Seta said proudly. "I do a lot of field work in ancient ruins. Unfortunately, they can be quite the magnet for all sorts of belligerent visitors after the contents and secrets they contain. Which," he added, "is the reason we're here, ready to fight off a small army. Among worse things."

Both Haitani and Shirai gulped. "Ahh, 'scuse me, professor? That's really great and wonderful to say when you've got something to fight with," Haitani commented. "Unfortunately, my partner-in-crime here and I don't generally carry anything bigger than a rubber band and a sharpened pencil, not normally."

Seta scratched his chin in brief thought. "Hmmm…that could be rectified, but…what do you think, Keitaro? Could these two shoot a gun to save their lives?"

"Realistically speaking?" Keitaro asked rhetorically. "I'm inclined to say no..."

"Hey!"

"…but they ought to be geared up anyway. Actually, they're pretty good with electronics and gadgetry; it might be better if they handled something with more buttons than triggers."

"…alright, I'll give him that one," Shirai muttered.

Seta grinned. "That could actually be arranged. Come with me!"

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At first, they thought it was a joke.

Seta had led them quite some distance across the base to a large doorway with thick pneumatic doors, with a sign above it reading "TOY BOX" in several languages. "The heck is this!?" Shirai asked.

"This," Seta said as he punched in a code to open the sealed doors, "is where we keep the good stuff."

He wasn't kidding, either. The doors slid open to reveal a long, densely stocked chamber, a veritable mosoleum of modern weaponry.

Mitsune blinked, shook her head, then blinked again. "Holy shit," she muttered.

Here, it seemed, was the busiest place in the entire complex. There were weapons of every model, make, size, and description everywhere: rows upon rows of pistols, shotguns, rifles, SMGs, and explosives lined the walls; rows of the riot armor in several variants and every size from midget to massive were arranged in organized columns. In the back, an entire section was devoted solely to weapons and devices so unusual and complex that many had explanatory signs mounted on their racks to describe their uses.

Everywhere, there were people armed to the teeth with everything imaginable, or else that were in the process of becoming as such.

"Welcome to the armory," Seta said.

"Now I get why they called it the Toy Box," Haitani half-drooled. "They just didn't say what kind!"

"Mind if we look around?" Shirai asked.

Seta checked his watch. "I suppose we can browse for a little while. Not too long though, and before you start drooling you all need some armor first and foremost. You too, Mitsune; I think you'll want something with sleeves this time."

Mitsune laughed. "Got that right!"

"Out of curiosity, Seta," Keitaro asked, a wary look coming over his face, "exactly how many of these bad guys are we going to be dealing with? There's enough here to fight "

"Not sure, myself. No one is, to be honest. The problem is that there are several major groups out there; we'll be facing at least one, but they have their own rivals as well, and a large mobilization won't go unnoticed by them. That may be to our advantage in some regards when you consider they don't get along at all, but it will mean more bullets coming our way as well as theirs." He frowned suddenly. "It's not them I'm as worried about; it's some of the leaders that are the biggest concern, especially for you. They will be after you more than anything or anyone else. To them, the rest of us are just in the way."

Keitaro frowned. "So all of them are getting ready to attack as one?"

"If not each other as well, in the process." Seta sighed. "I'm sorry you have to go through all this, by the way. I know you aren't particularly keen on this sort of conflict"

Keitaro shook his head. "Don't be, it's not your fault."

"Unfortunately, in a small way…it is," Seta said in a low voice.

"W-what do you mean?" Keitaro asked, confused.

"Well, who do you think found that suit? That sword?" Seta asked pointedly. "I've spent the better part of my career hunting strange and powerful things like that, Keitaro, in the interest of adventure and scientific discovery if nothing else. But there is all too often a good reason to build secret chambers, hidden ruins, and several dozen deadly traps between such things and the outside world, better than safeguarding an ancient treasure."

"What reason is that?"

"To saveguard the world against the treasure itself."

Mitsune frowned. "Why'd you dig it up, then?"

Seta chuckled. "Unfortunately…because I didn't have much choice in the matter. If I had not, there would be others that might have after me. I could not trust that those things wouldn't fall into the wrong hands and cause catastrophe, not unless I made sure it fell into the right ones first." His expression became blank, almost haunted. "And that came at a high cost, even then. A cost that could mount rather quickly soon, if we aren't careful. Come on, let's get ourselves ready."

Three riot-gear vests of various sizes were quickly picked out and strapped on. Mitsune found hers to be quite heavy and a little less flattering than the vest had been (though Keitaro, for one, still thought it did), but didn't say anything about it out loud. Keitaro, meanwhile, found something quite interesting and useful: a powerful magnetic harness specially made for wearing an equally interesting Mossberg 590A-1 12-gauge shotgun. He tried it on; it was specially made to fit on the back, holding the gun comfortably between his shoulder blades even through the fabric of his cloak. As he considered how uncomfortably he was currently bearing the shoulder-strapped weapon under his cloak, he decided to give it away in trade.

"I'm going to trade up a bit here," he said aloud to the group, pulling the Remington off his shoulder." "Does anyone want this—"

"Shotgun!" Haitani called, the moment Keitaro offered the gun up.

"Shotgun! Dangit!" Shirai said a moment too late. Laughing to himself, Keitaro gave up the twelve-gauge to Haitani, who accepted it with a distinct air of smug satisfaction as he went off to find himself a Rambo-style shoulder belt for holding extra shells.

Now, only Shirai was unarmed. Looking around at the vast array of arms around him, he searched for something unique.

A moment later, in a long, sideways rack among a variety of unusual and experimental devices, he found it.

"Uh…what the heck is that thing?" Haitani asked, when his friend came back wearing a large, bulky pack with a corded rifle-like attachment on the side.

"Dunno, but it looked pretty damn cool. Sign said it was a prototype portable proton-acceleration beam projector or some such. It's supposed to shoot a charged plasma beam of some sort."

Seta raised an eyebrow. "You know, I have a friend in the Physics Department at Toudai that was working on something like that. I guess he must have finished it."

"How's it work?" Shirai asked, looking at the various buttons and control knobs on the hand-held portion of the device.

"Well enough to scorch a twenty foot-long gouge along the wall of my office!" Seta replied with a chuckle. "At least, the one he showed me did. You'd have to ask him how to use it, though; I'm not really sure what the controls do, and I'm not about to risk my tenure again trying to find out like the last time!"

"Sweeeet!" Shirai grinned, much to everyone's dismay. 'That's it, we're all gonna die,' Haitani privately thought. He couldn't shake the feeling he'd seen something like it before, but he couldn't remember where…

Shirai only looked eager to find the guy that made it as quickly as possible, and didn't look like he would take no for an answer.

Keitaro asked Seta, "What exactly did your friend make those things for, anyway?"

Seta shrugged. "He works in experimental nuclear physics, but he does Modern Foreign Culture courses on the side. He's also a decent inventor, though considering his background I'm not so sure that's a good thing oftentimes. That, in particular, I think he was working on as a possible weapon to help the Shinmei-ryu school with confrontations with Oni spirits, I think. Apparantly, it's supposed to help weaken or restrain the more difficult ones they have to confront on occasion; something about it interfering with their unusual psychokinetic energies in a particular way."

Keitaro considered this for a moment. "Hmmm…that kind of reminds me of a movie I saw once…wait, don't tell me that thing actually works like that!"

Seta shrugged, "Close enough, I guess. Comedians or no, they did do their research when they wrote it. I'm more surprised that Heihachiro-san actually managed to come up with that many working prototypes."

"Well, what about the sort of enemies we've got coming now?" he asked.

"Hmmm…I think something like that might prove effective enough. The one I saw shot a visible stream of energy about two inches wide in a continuous manner. Actually, by the looks of your friend there, I'd say it would be more ideal than something he'd have to be able to aim properly to be effective."

Keitaro nodded. "Good point. I don't think I've seen either of those two shoot anything outside of a computer game."

A few minutes later, they were armed and ready with everything they would need. Seta took them along even further, keeping his distance from the pack (and its worrisome carrier) as they went. To onlookers, they were an odd sight among odd sights: a professor with a cigarette and a heavy arsenal, a man shrouded by a cloak with a large shotgun stuck to the material; a woman with her eyes half-shut that somehow managed to pull of a somewhat svelte look even in thick protective gear; a smug-looking nerd with another shotgun and a long chain belt of extra shells strapped across his chest for good measure; and his shorter, rounder counterpart sporting what looked like a small portable nuclear reactor for a backpack, still dangerously fiddling with the controls of its projection cannon at random.

Even so, no one really gave them more than a second look; equally strange and varied groupings were to be seen all over the place. On top of that, most were quite busy with business of their own.

They were, after all, all preparing for the fight of their lives.

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In the fortress's nerve center, where all the weapons, communications, surveillance, and tactical readouts were controlled, there was one person who had been long prepared for the fight ahead, and was currently little concerned with the details of the final steps. There were about twenty others in the room to keep track of them, anyway; the leader had hand-picked each and every one of them to do the job right.

The leader, at that moment, was more concerned with the video feeds of two security cameras positioned to record all that happened in two particular hallways, both in the sleeping quarters from two separate wings of the base.

So, too, were the two female commanders standing at either side of the leader's chair.

The feeds were not live, but recorded from the previous night. Specifically, they showed a most unusual event that took place within the span of half an hour, several hours before dawn.

The commander on the left was stone-faced, but her fist clenched dangerously at her side. The one on the right watched with a mixture of interest, concern, and bemusement as she lit a fresh smoke.

"It would seem," the leader spoke to the one on the right, "that one of the girls did not take your advise fully to heart, Haruka."

Haruka simply snorted and shook her head. "I'd have been more surprised if they all had. But that wasn't what I found most interesting about it. Watch what happens when she actually gets there."

They kept watching, and the figure from the first feed appeared in the second. As they watched her approach the door of perhaps the most important person in the compound with sword drawn, he calmly stepped out of the shadow behind her.

Haruka paused the video. "Just so you both know," she commented, "neither of them was hurt in any way that I can see in all of this. Unfortunately, we don't have audio on the security cams in these areas, so I'm afraid I'm not sure what was spoken between the two afterward. However…"

She resumed the video, and the covered figure attacked, only to be quickly and harmlessly thrown and disarmed.

The rage of the left commander became almost palpable at this point. "After all that has happened, she has the audacity to do it again!?"

"You know as well as I do, Tsuruko, how stubborn your sister can be. At the very least, she is determined to stick to what she believes in, until she knows for herself otherwise. That much, she shares with you, anyway."

Tsuruko was about to retort, but the leader stopped her. "Patience, young one. We have already discussed the matter of your sister at great length, have we not?"

"We have agreed only to overlook her past behavior in light of recent events," Tsuruko replied angrily, "but I have not said that I will stand by and tolerate her continued misbehavior in this regard. She endangers many lives with such acts as this, including her own; I cannot allow her to proceed so dishonorably, if only for the sake of the Shinmei-ryu school she is to inherit. You know this."

"All too, well, Tsuruko. Yet I still must side with Haruka in this matter, if only for his sake. Remember that it is still his prerogative to decide what action to take in response, and he has been quite clear in his wishes thus far. Observe!"

Indeed, the words rang true. There was Urashima himself, now armed with both his own, undrawn weapon and that of his assailant, clearly quite capable of any number of retaliatory measures against her, and yet he made no gesture of attack. Even after his assailant revealed her identity, he did not seek retribution. Astoundingly, he was offering the blade back to her, with the blade in position to do himself the most harm and her the least. Nor did he go to draw his own weapon, but rather removed his shirt to reveal the mess of scars that covered much of his torso.

The effect was enough to startle the feed's viewers, save for Haruka, who had already seen it. "My thoughts exactly," she said.

If the leader was angry, it didn't show. Tsuruko, on the other hand, was both stunned and enraged by the sight. "How many of those were the work of my sister, Haruka?" she demanded.

"I don' think he's keeping count, Tsuruko," Haruka replied, "or he'd have reciprocated in like kind by now."

"As would have many, in his place," the leader noted. "And yet though he is in the position to do so, he does not."

"Clearly," Tsuruko agreed, "but he is not one that would; otherwise, he would not be here. Be that as it may, my sister's actions are still inexcusable. I will deal with this matter myself."

Before anyone could stop her, Tsuruko silently stormed off to find her sister, a look of righteous hell burning in her eyes.

'Dammit!' Haruka thought, moving to go stop her before all hell broke loose. To her surprise, the leader's hand restrained her. "Let her go, Haruka; she will not learn what her sister has by our words alone."

"It's not her I'm worried about."

"I know that, child," she said. "But fret not; if nothing else is made crystal clear by what you have shown us, it is that Keitaro will go to any length to ensure the safety of those in his care, even when the danger is from one of them."

"And what if he gets himself caught between those two when they are at each other's throats?" Haruka asked.

The leader chuckled. "He is tough, my dear, tougher than we know. He has already faced one of them down; I doubt that he will fare any differently between them both as he is now."

Haruka frowned. "You're taking an awfully big risk here, you know."

"Oh? I do not believe it to be so great a risk as that. You know as well as I do that he will not allow harm to come to either of them if he can help it, and he is quite able to help it now, don't you think?"

Haruka thought for a moment, then chuckled. "Yeah…I guess you're right about that much. Then again, you always did had a knack for pegging the right risks to take, didn't you?"

"Which reminds me!" the leader said, voice full of sudden amusement. "I believe there was a small matter concerning another risk that has, I believed, fallen in my favor?"

Haruka snorted derisively, reaching for her purse and slowly digging through it. "Should've known you'd peg it right in the end, huh?" she muttered as she began counting out the bills, an eye on the scenes now playing out on the security monitors not far from the control room. She lost count at one point as she watched, much to the leader's amusement.

Somewhere around thirty-four thousand Yen of her second count, several powerful rumbling explosions interrupted her. "Shit! They're here!" Haruka cursed aloud, tossing the purse aside. "I'll pay it later. We've got company to deal with!"

The wizened old face of the leader smiled warmly, almost sentimentally, then grinned with a fire full of lively power. "Well, then…let's give them a warm welcome, shall we?"

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Normally, Keitaro had a fairly good sense of impending danger coming his way. He wasn't very good at avoiding it most of the time, of course, and had learned on a subconscious level that avoidance often made the end result even worse.

Of course, he could hardly call wearing a suit of armor that boosted every aspect of his being beyond what he ever thought was possible in an underground fortress next to someone he could legitimately call his girlfriend, marching off to face hordes of dangerous and relatively unknown enemies that could strike at any moment (not to mention facing the inevitable reactions of his remaining tenants) a very normal case scenario. Still, in all the craziness of the past week he was slowly beginning to feel more in his element than he'd ever been, as though he was coming into position for a role he'd been born and raised to fill.

When he felt the danger coming, he could damn near taste the subtleties and character of each distinct threat. In a span of time shorter than normal human reaction time, he already knew the combination was just about as bad as it could get.

They were approaching an intersection of paths, a main hub of the base's activity by all accounts. Two paths branched off into separate wings of the compound, another to its controlling headquarters, a fourth to its rear. The wings angled off to the straight path from rear to fore they were now on, and danger was now coming on all sides but behind them. The first danger was to himself and Kitsune, a very specific and focused anger charging toward them from the left at the sight of the latter. The second was more coincidental, a danger of someone he knew well getting caught in the impending crossfire about to erupt where the paths met. A third came before them, but not directed at them in particular; this danger was extreme, its focus on someone following the first danger on the left path and somehow related to himself.

Worst of all, a fourth danger of intractable malice to everyone around him now gathered from above, and though it was by far the slowest in arrival of all it would soon become the worst.

Vaguely, he wondered how his luck managed to pull him into such hellish spots in the first place.

The feeling, apparently, did not go unnoticed. Next to him, Mitsune sensed the change in his demeanor at once. "You alright, Kei-kun?"

He shook his head. "No; Kitsu-chan, we have five seconds to major hell, brace yourself!"

Surprise registered on her features briefly, but she recovered just in time to mentally prepare to face what her boyfriend knew was coming. "Okay, but what—"

Without warning, something latched on to her midsection with surprising strength, instantly squeezing the breath out of her. "Yer back! Hiya Fox-lady!!"

Simultaneously, a blur of blond pigtailed hair passed directly in front of her at high speed, nearly knocking her over backwards in spite of the extra weight attached to her torso. "PAPA!" the blur yelled with a familiar voice, making a beeline for the man next to them.

"Gaaaack! Hi, Su…" Mitsune managed to say. Even with thick bulletproof material surrounding her ribcage, Kaolla Su's bearhugs were still incredibly strong. Sarah, meanwhile, was pulling a similar stunt with her adoptive father. Shinobu was approaching from the same direction the other two had come as well.

Keitaro, still concealed by his cloak, hung off to the side at the moment; glad as he was to see his tenants alive and well once more, his focus was not on them at the moment, but rather on the fact that they were the second, indirectly threatented danger.

"KITSUNE! WHERE IS THAT BAKA HENTAI, AND WHY WERE YOU IN HIS ROOM!?" an all-too familiar voice was yelling from the other wing. He didn't even need to look to know Naru was barging past bystanders like a freight train toward them with near-murderous intent. In such a state, it wouldn't take long for her to recognize him even in his abnormal attire, though at the moment her focus was entirely on Kitsune.

Even as he prepared to face this first, impending threat, the third was rapidly closing in. Had he not met the older of the Aoyama sisters, he might have sworn he was seeing double; Motoko followed close behind Naru, for once not nearly as angry as her friend, but Tsuruko came like an approaching storm down the front path. If Naru was in the mood to kill at the moment, the Shinmei-ryu master was prepared to level buildings.

When he saw this third source of danger, Keitaro realized in a flash that everyone standing nearby was in immediate peril: Kitsune would soon be staring down the end of Naru's fist, Motoko was walking straight into deadly peril, his other friends were blindly wandering into the crosshairs of forces they weren't prepared to face or survive, and he was the only hope any of them had of surviving the onslaught before everyone had to turn and face the one danger that threatened to consume them all sooner than they could know.

And that meant he had to act now, to face down and neutralize a three-way battle in its tracks. For the sake of their own safety, he would have to do things that he had so desperately tried to avoid having to do for their own protection, things that put them at a mild but definite risk he had, until then, been unwilling to voluntarily put them in himself.

A second, at most, was all he had to decide.

For once in his life, he faced the choice he had avoided so long directly and made it with half a second to spare.

He stepped into the central crossing point, directly in front of all parties concerned, and swept his arms backward. As he did, his cloak billowed away from him with a gentle but irresistable wave of his ki. He didn't need to watch as surprise slowly registered on the faces of his girlfriend, his friends, his mentor, and his youngest tenants, each lifted off their feet by the force of his push and moved just far enough out of the way for him to act without further endangering them. As he did, Naru nearly froze in surprise mid-punch, her aim not directed toward him, but toward where Mitsune had been standing. But like a dam bursting, her momentum could not be stopped, and Keitaro's hand was already lightly gripping behind her extended wrist, guiding its path in a circular trajectory around him to send her almost directly back the way she came, also out of the way.

Motoko froze as she reached the center of the intersection a mere step away from him; Naru practically flew past her, landing on the ground in a graceless but otherwise harmless roll. Before the young swordmaiden could think of how to react, her own instincts told her what Keitaro already knew of the third threat, and long hours of hard training shifted her focus to face it.

She realized it was her sister's battle cry her ears were hearing barely half a second before she saw the distinctive aerial distortion of a massive, perfectly performed Shinmei-ryu style secret ki attack technique, its razor-sharp force aimed straight at her. She didn't have time to prepare herself , to parry or brace for the blow, though her body was already moving to draw Shisui to make the attempt anyway. Though she could not will herself to move any faster, she saw in slow-motion the incoming attack and her own inability to meet it in time. It simply wasn't humanly possible, it seemed, and her mind had a fraction of a second to analyze and accept the small but fatal failure…

And just as suddenly, there was another blade, longer than her own and moving with its wielder at a speed that seemed incredibly fast even from the standpoint of slowed time. The weapon's unusually long arc matched the angle of the oncoming blast perfectly; to her utmost surprise, it absorbed the full force of the matterless strike before it could reach her.

'What!?' was all she could think to herself at the unexpected rescue; the figure in front of her was both familiar and unfamiliar, a dark-colored cloak flowing around exotically designed heavy armor as the beautiful but bizarre blade that had just saved her neck flashed through the air. Belatedly, she realized it was the same figure that had thrown Naru, the same from which seven people had suddenly and inexplicably been driven back and away from. Her mind had only milliseconds to ponder the figure's identity, to start making the connection with one possibility that mere days ago would have seemed completely absurd to her, if not downright impossible, before seeing the swiftly moving form of her sister closing the distance faster than she would have thought possible.

This time, she almost had enough time to raise her weapon to her own defense, to prepare to meet the physical cut her sister was moving to inflict. But once again, the figure managed to surprise them both as his gauntleted arm, still holding the long blade it wielded, stopped Motoko's blade with the plates of his armor; simultaneously, the other held the back edge of his blade, angling it just in time to block and stop Tsuruko's strike.

Surprise registered on Tsuruko's face in the brief instant that the blades clashed, just long enough for the still-hooded form to yell in a familiar but surprisingly firm voice, "STOP THIS NOW!"

Finally, it clicked for everyone what was going on. The hood of Keitaro's cloak had fallen back just enough to reveal an expression of razor-sharp concentration on his face, the look of a warrior far more dangerous and powerful than they knew.

Still pressing hard against his blade, Tsuruko growled, "This is not your concern, Urashima-san. This is between myself and Motoko. Stand aside!"

A hard, angry expression crossed Keitaro's face just then, a look born of long pain and frustration that finally came to the surface. "Don't you get it yet!?" he practically snarled. "This has always been my damn concern!!" In one swift motion, he spun, angling Motoko's blade to the right and Tsuruko's to the left in such a way that both were sent spiraling head-over-heels around him.

In the meantime, Naru had regained her feet, if not her previous focus. The identity of the man that had so quickly thrown her away from the goal of her attack was only just beginning to register with her, producing a white hot rage quelled only by a sudden, fearful panic as her mind caught up with her situation. She had spent the last five minutes searching for both Keitaro and Mitsune, ready to pummel either or both of them for what she could only assume was either his perversion gone unchecked, her friend's blatant betrayal of that which she herself had yet to accept, or both. Finding one, she had moved to attack, only for some overpowered bastard to stand in her way! She started to growl almost inaudibly, "You interfering little—w-what!?"

Before her rage could manifest again, his identity finally registered with her; the final maneuver he'd made had thrown his hood back completely, revealing fully the terrifying visage of determined power on the face she had never known to wear it.

"S-Sempai! Is that…you??" she heard Shinobu cry softly with a mix of surprise, fearful concern, and sudden wonderment from another direction, still sitting where she'd landed a moment earlier. Even now, her mind wanted to rebel, to refuse to accept what her own eyes told her plainly. To her shock and dismay, Naru now realized fully who had just stood in her way, who had effortlessly bested herself, Motoko, and Tsuruko all at once without harming any of them. Worse, as she saw him sheathe his blade and glance with a distinctly worried expression in the direction of Mitsune first and foremost, she was literally struck with full realization beyond even her own doubts why he had done so.

Keitaro Urashima stood before them now unveiled as he truly was, tall and strong amidst all that had happened around and because of him. The fierceness long gone from his expression, he now bore all that was within his heart with the razor-sharp clarity of his sword. All present could feel it as tangibly as they felt the ground beneath them, his emotions sweeping out across them like a flood after being held back and hidden so well for so long. As he had always done, it was himself that he laid before them now; standing between their anger and targets, the fighters and the bystanders, the strong and the vulnerable, he used his own, now fully armored and capable form to ward off the worst of the damage they could have just caused to one another. Whether it was himself or his suit that allowed the core of his being to become so tangible now, even he could not say. Glancing now from his girlfriend (perhaps the only one not completely surprised at all that had just transpired) to everyone else, he felt and projected his relief that none were hurt, that the sheer shock, speed, and nature of his actions before them had been enough to dispel the immediate threats for the moment. He sighed and closed his eyes, relief shifting to remorse. "Please…forgive me, everyone. I cannot stand by and let you hurt one another, whatever your reasons may be. I am the cause of it, all of it, and for that I am truly remorseful. If you must, attack me instead. I will not resist; I can take the blows and go on. You, however, cannot. We're all here to stay alive and fight off those that mean harm to us, the ones we care about the most, not kill one another before they get the chance!"

He looked at Tsuruko, whose murderously cold expression had faded to one of small wonder. "Your sister has already learned the truth of her actions without coming to harm, and I know now that you have seen what transpired or you would not be attacking her so. I understand your dismay, Tsuruko, but do not make the same mistake she has at her expense. I have paid dearly enough as it is to make sure my tenants do not come to harm; don't waste that so recklessly in anger! Don't force me to bring about something I've tried so hard to prevent!" He glanced at Naru, whose fury had passed into terror, and said, "It hurts me deeply to even risk harming you, even to protect you from one another. But I will not stand by and let you do it, either, not even you, Naru Narusegawa. I know I am not nearly perfect, and that I often screw up quite badly, but I would rather die than let any of you get needlessly hurt. Please, don't take it all out on Mitsune; she is as much your friend as I am, and for all that she has done she doesn't wish you harm any more than I do. And whatever you may think, I have never wished any of you harm, not even once. In fact…if anything, I've nearly died a hundred times over to keep that from happening. I'd do it all again until there was nothing of me left if I had to. When this is all over…when I can be sure that you will all be safe, then go ahead and kill me if you must, but for the love of everything that is good don't kill each other in front of me!"

As he finished speaking, the flood of emotion seemed to retract slowly back into itself, his being withdrawing back into the shell that was his body. As if breaking a spell, each person around him blinked and realized that they were in reality, and that the man before them was the very same he'd ever been: the same Keitaro Urashima that managed a girl's dorm at great personal cost, whose heart and clumsy nature got in the way of one another at the worst possible moments and caused him to suffer silently.

Keitaro, the berated "baka hentai" of the Hinata-Sou, sank to his knees before them and silently wept.

A moment, maybe two, passed as everyone returned to their own thoughts, each assimilating the recent experience in his or her own way.

It was all the time they had before the ground shook beneath their feet, and everything went to hell all at once around them.

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A.N.: This is only the beginning of the confrontations, my friends. I thought long and hard how I wanted to approach the last scene of this chapter, and in the end I felt that a "classic" (i.e. everyone at Keitaro's throat and each other's as well unchecked) approach is okay to start with, but not how I envisioned it ending up. Don't be fooled into thinking everything's hunky-dory now, though; I just needed to get it out in the open before things really start going apeshit.

Props to Hitchhiker's Guide for the title idea, Ghostbusters for a half-joke, half-serious weapon for the hob—I mean, for Shirai, and to several of my reviewers for their input on the guns, particularly Ashengrave for the new shotgun for Keitaro (you're right, the thing looks a hell of a lot more awesome).

Seeing as how it's been several months, I doubt anyone's still paying attention anymore. Read and review if you can forgive me for it being so damn long.