Betraying My People Chapter 12:

Going Back to Earth

Ichigo and Kisshu had dinner with Hamaya and Aran, and told them about Earth. They were interested, but sad that Earth was so polluted.

A few hours later, the TV-like device came on, and Pai's face appeared. "I'm here," he said. "Can you come out?"

"Hai," Aran said. "We'll be right there."

Kisshu and Ichigo followed him and Hamaya outside, where they saw the spaceship. Pai was waiting for them next to it, and they walked over to him. "Kisshu, are you okay?" Pai asked.

"I'm fine," Kisshu said. "Sorry this happened."

Pai sighed. "I think I should do some tests on you, to figure out why you can't teleport properly," he said. "I hope it doesn't have anything to do with Deep Blue."

"Why would Deep Blue cause Kisshu to have trouble teleporting?" Hamaya asked.

"Kisshu, you didn't tell them?" Pai asked. He turned to his parents and said, "We discovered Deep Blue was only using us. He wanted the Earth for himself, and we believe he's the reason Kisshu nearly died a while back."

Hamaya and Aran looked shocked. "Is that why you want to heal the planet with Mew Aqua?" Aran asked.

"Hai," Pai said. "We need to go back to Earth and search for the Mew Aqua, as well as find out who Deep Blue's human host is, so we can kill that person before Deep Blue gets to him. If Deep Blue awakens, we'll all be in for it."

"Should we inform our leader?" Hamaya asked.

"If you can, that'd be great," Pai said. "I don't think any of want to see what would happen if Deep Blue took over the Earth."

"Alright," Aran said. "It was nice to see you both again, and nice to meet Ichigo."

"Arigato, it was nice to meet you both as well," Ichigo said.

Hamaya hugged Pai and Kisshu, then said to Ichigo, "Take care of them."

"I will," Ichigo said. "I'm already cooking for them, and I like living with them. I'll take care of them."

Hamaya nodded, and Pai took Ichigo and Kisshu by the shoulder, then teleported back into the ship.

"Hey, where's Taruto?" Kisshu asked.

"He's with Pudding," Pai said. "She wanted him to sleep over at her house, and since I had to come get you two, I told him to go with her. I think she likes him."

"I just hope she doesn't decide to play with his ears," Ichigo said.

"We can hope," Pai said. "I think both of you should get some rest while we're flying. It's after midnight on Earth."

"Okay," Ichigo said. "Come on, Kisshu."

Kisshu followed her to his room, and said, "You want to sleep together again?"

"I like it," Ichigo said, blushing.

Kisshu smiled and said, "So do I."

They both went into his room, and curled up together on the bed. Ichigo was asleep soon after, but Kisshu couldn't fall asleep for some reason. Oh well, he thought. Maybe I've been sleeping too much lately.

Instead of trying to go to sleep, Kisshu started stroking Ichigo's hair. She leaned into his hand in her sleep and started purring softly. Kisshu smiled and continued petting her. Half an hour later, he was starting to get sleepy too. Ichigo's purring was comforting somehow. Kisshu eventually fell asleep, his hand still on Ichigo's hair.

They were both woken up a few hours later by Pai, who waited till they were at least semi-awake before saying, "We should go to Earth now. Kisshu, I'll teleport both of you, I don't think it's a good idea for you to teleport until I figure out why you're having so much trouble."

Kisshu sighed, but nodded. Pai took him and Ichigo by the shoulder, and teleported to Café Mew Mew. Keiichiro was in the main room, and when he saw them, he said, "Oh, good. Kisshu, what happened?"

"I don't know," Kisshu said. "I somehow teleported back to our planet, and I guess that drained me, because I only woke up after Ichigo healed me. I don't know why we ended up on our planet, though. I thought I was teleporting back to the ship."

"Strange," Keiichiro said. "Well, at least you're okay. We should go to the basement, I called everyone together."

"Okay," Kisshu said. He, Ichigo and Pai followed Keiichiro to the basement, where they found the other Mews and Taruto waiting.

"Kisshu, are you okay?" Taruto asked.

"I'm fine," Kisshu said. "Ichigo healed me."

"Good," Taruto said. Surprisingly, he sounded relieved.

"Since when did you care that much?" Kisshu asked.

Taruto looked embarrassed and said, "You're my brother, of course I care about you."

"Aw, Taru-Taru is so cute!" Pudding said.

"Taru-Taru?" Kisshu asked, snickering.

"That's his new nickname," Pudding said cheerfully. "Taru-Taru and Pudding are friends now, na no da!"

"Good for you," Ichigo said.

Keiichiro cleared his throat, and everyone looked at him. "Pai and I have almost finished the Mew Aqua sensor," he said. "When it's completely done, we'll be testing it out, so I'll contact you when we've finished. We may have to do a lot of searching, so I want you to be prepared for a lot of time spent looking for Mew Aqua. We'll try not to overwork you, but we need to be prepared, since we still can't figure out who Deep Blue's human host is."

"You still don't know?" Kisshu asked.

"No," Pai said. "I've been researching, but my searches keep coming up with nothing for some reason."

"That doesn't sound good," Ichigo said.

"It's not," Pai said. "If Deep Blue manages to control the person, he'll be almost unbeatable."

"He said it was a boy," Taruto commented. "Is there a way to narrow down the search? Also, it must be someone in Tokyo, or he wouldn't have sent us here."

"You've got a point," Pai said. "I think I've got an idea. I'll be back later if it works. Kisshu, Ichigo, do you want to come back to the ship or stay here?"

"I think we should go back to the ship," Ichigo said. "Is that okay?"

"Yeah," Pai said. He took both Ichigo and Kisshu by the shoulder and teleported back to the ship. "I have to go back, so have fun," Pai said. "But don't go too far, got it?"

Kisshu sighed. "You sound like Uncle Aran," he said. "Don't worry about us."

"Fine…" Pai said. He teleported out, leaving Ichigo and Kisshu alone.

"What do you want to do now, Kisshu?" Ichigo asked.

"Play a game?" Kisshu suggested.

"What should we play?" Ichigo asked.

"How about Lost Cities?" Kisshu suggested.

"Sure," Ichigo said. "You have that game?"

"Yep," Kisshu said. "It's in my room, let's go."

So for the next few hours, Kisshu and Ichigo played Lost Cities. Ichigo was winning; she had won five times, and Kisshu had only won three times. He was getting frustrated, too. "You're a sore loser, aren't you?" Ichigo asked him.

"What makes you think that?" Kisshu asked.

"You're snarling at the cards," Ichigo said. "Do you want to play something else?"

"How about 'Cat and Mouse'?" Kisshu suggested.

"I've never heard of that, how do you play?" Ichigo asked.

Kisshu smirked. "One of us gets to be the Cat, and chases the other person around until either they get tired, or the Cat grabs them."

"Where did you come up with that?" Ichigo asked.

"I didn't, it's a child's game we played on my planet," Kisshu said. "This one time, Taruto and I were playing, and Pai was reading something. Taruto was trying to get Pai to hide him from me, and Pai whacked him over the head with a book. Boy, did Pai get in trouble. Aunt Hamaya was sooo mad. And Taruto barely got bruised. We spent two days secretly laughing at Pai's punishment."

"What was his punishment?" Ichigo asked.

"No reading unless it was school-related," Kisshu said, smirking. "To Pai, that's like torture."

Ichigo burst out laughing, and Kisshu joined in. When they started to calm down, Kisshu said, "Wanna hear a really funny story about Pai?"

"Sure," Ichigo said, still giggling.

"One time Uncle Aran left this bottle out on the table, and Pai, for some reason, drank it," Kisshu said. "Then he started acting like a lunatic, and when he saw this girl that we think he had a crush on, he tried to kiss her."

Ichigo started laughing again, but Kisshu said, "And that's not all. The girl ran away, and he started chasing her. Taruto came to find me, and I ended up having to knock Pai out, and apologize to the girl, and her mother, for letting Pai get so out of control. Uncle Aran told us later that the stuff Pai drank was an old bottle of some kind of alcohol, and he was going to throw it out, but Pai drank it before he could. Pai got in sooo much trouble, and he had to write an apology letter to the girl and her family. Boy, when he woke up, and we told him what he did, he turned so red we thought he was going to explode."

"Jeez, I thought Pai would know better than to drink something without knowing what it was," Ichigo said.

"Yeah, it was weird," Kisshu said.

Pai teleported in as they were contemplating what to do next. "Kisshu, I want to run a few tests on you," he said. "I think we need to get to the bottom of why you can't teleport properly."

Kisshu sighed. "Can Ichigo be there?" he asked.

"Yes," Pai said. "You're still not over your fear of needles?"

Kisshu turned slightly red and said, "I don't like them."

"I guess it's better that Ichigo be there, considering what happened the last time," Pai said.

"What happened?" Ichigo asked.

"Kisshu had to be dragged into my lab, and I had to put him to sleep," Pai said, as Kisshu turned red.

"Kisshu, there's nothing wrong with being afraid of needles," Ichigo said. "It's completely natural to be uncomfortable with being pricked like that."

"More like stabbed," Kisshu grumbled.

"Let's go," Pai said. "We need to do this. But Ichigo can be there, so it won't be as bad."

Kisshu sighed, and followed by Ichigo, followed Pai to the lab.

When they went in, Pai pointed to a chair, and said, "Okay, sit down over there. I'll go get the stuff ready."

Kisshu sat down in the chair, and Ichigo stood next to him. Pai came over with a needle attached to a small container, and said, "Okay, hold out your arm."

Kisshu grimaced, and Ichigo took his hand. He sighed and held his arm out. "Just don't look," Pai instructed. Kisshu looked away as Pai picked up the needle and stuck it into Kisshu's arm. Kisshu flinched, and his grip on Ichigo's hand tightened.

A few minutes later, Pai said, "Okay, I'm taking the needle out." He did so, and put a bandage on Kisshu's arm. "All set," Pai said.

"About time," Kisshu said. "How much blood did you take, anyways?"

"Two vials," Pai said. "I'm going to go look at it. Stay here, I might need to do a few more tests."

"Do they involve needles?" Kisshu asked warily.

"No," Pai said. "They involve one of my machines."

"Great…" Kisshu groaned.

Pai sighed. "I have to run some tests on your blood, so stay quiet for a while," he said.

Kisshu and Ichigo obeyed. About fifteen minutes later, Pai said, "Okay, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong, but I'm going to use the machine I have to figure out if your teleporting ability was messed up by your illness."

"Where is the machine?" Kisshu asked.

"I'll just bring it over, so stay put," Pai said. He went over to a cabinet and pulled out a small machine with a bunch of wires coming out of it. "I have to put you to sleep," he told Kisshu.

"Fine," Kisshu said.

Pai put a hand on Kisshu's forehead, and soon he was sleeping. Then Pai attached two of the wires to Kisshu's forehead, and pushed a button on the machine. He appeared to be looking at something, and suddenly his eyes widened. "This isn't good…" he whispered.

Scared, Ichigo asked, "What's wrong?"

"The part of his brain that tells the rest of him how to teleport has been damaged, probably by that fever," Pai said. "And I'm not sure how to fix it."

"What if I tried healing his brain, rather than his body?" Ichigo suggested.

"That's an idea," Pai said. "Go for it."

Ichigo nodded and transformed. She then began to glow pink, and put her hand on Kisshu's forehead. The pink glow started to move from her to Kisshu. This time only his head glowed, until the light faded. Ichigo took her hand away, and said, "Check it now, Pai."

Pai nodded, and pressed a button on the machine. He looked at something, and said, "Ichigo, that worked! He should be able to teleport fine now!"

"Great!" Ichigo said. "He'll be happy to hear that. Can you wake him up?"

Pai nodded, and took the wires away. Then he tapped Kisshu's forehead. Kisshu slowly woke up. "What happened?" he asked.

"You had brain damage from the fever, and that was what caused your teleporting problems," Pai explained. "But Ichigo healed you, so you should be able to teleport fine now."

Kisshu floated up and shouted, "YES! Thank you, Koneko-chan!"

Ichigo smiled and said, "You're welcome."

Kisshu smiled too, and took her hand, then teleported to his room. They landed on the bed, and Kisshu flopped back. Ichigo did the same, and they looked at each other. "I'm so happy I can teleport again!" Kisshu said. "I really missed that."

"I know," Ichigo said. "I'm glad I could help."

Kisshu smiled, then pulled Ichigo closer and kissed her. She kissed back, and they stayed like that for quite a while.

Okay, next chapter might be more exciting. I know this was kinda boring. I hope you'll still review!