Chapter Seven

Destiny:

"Kururu! Help me out with this!"

Kururu looked up over his desk piled with data at another energetic Keronian bent over a set of tools and a small object. Dressed in his usual- a white lab coat- Kururu rose from his desk and walked over to the one that had called him.

"What is it, Miyiyi?" he asked in a dead tone. The young scientist looked up at him and smiled. "I wanted you to see this! It's a gift for Rozuzu, his birthday is tomorrow!" she said happily. She leaned forward picking up the small object and lifted it up to Kururu from where she sat. He took the object and studied it for a moment, realizing that it was proving to be some sort of supped up mecha toy. "What have you installed on this?" he asked still using the same toy.

"Kururu! You're so lame! Can't you tell just by looking at it?" She gasped playfully. Kururu glanced down at her, lifting an eyebrow before returning his gaze back to the toy.

"A micro camera, audio device and, holographic scanner. You think he'd use something like this to spy on others?" he asked as if she was being stupid. Miyiyi frowned upon him and stood before snatching the toy from his hands. He simply shrugged at her and turned back to his work, leaving the encounter with a feeling of indifference. "You should be analyzing that data over there by the way, instead of playing with toys," he commented before picking up a stack of papers.

Miyiyi's face flushed before she spun around with her hands on her hips. "I'm not playing! I'm inventing! You should know the difference!" she cried, turning on her heel and marching to the desk across the room from Kururu's and sitting down on a stack of papers. "I hate this stupid thing anyway…" she muttered while grumbling to herself over the work she was procrastinating on. "I want to go home. I hate staying up here studying some…something…like this," she mumbled as she got lost in her thoughts. Kururu paid her little attention as he finished up his work for the night. Once he was done though, he rose once more from his desk and headed for the loft that was above the lab.

"Kururu…?"He heard a voice whimper from behind him as his hand grasped the ladder up to the loft. He looked over his shoulder back at Miyiyi, indicating that he was listening. "I think…I found something…" she said, her voice a bit drained of enthusiasm. Kururu turned back to her, now that she had more of his attention. She rose from her desk, holding three sheets of data and approached him. Handing him the papers she rubbed her eyes to fight off the weariness and long for sleep.

"What is it?" Kururu asked while reading over the data. It was a reading from EXE, apparently they had recorded it's voice without damaging their equipment, however as Kururu read the data, the words were all scrambled up,creating incomprehensible sentences. "It's in an old, old code from the oldest planet in the universe." Miyiyi answered. "I spoke with an old friend of mine, and he translated it for me. I want you to take a look at it, tell me what you think." she said flipping the paper over in Kururu's hands. On the back she had written the translation, forming what seemed to be a poem.

"Life and Nature exist as two,
Intelligence and Existence exist as three,
Elements exist as seven,
Destiny exists as one.

I chose."

The two of them stared at the poem with little idea what it meant. "Tell the others in the morning." Kururu instructed, not knowing then what would behold them within the next few days.

Kururu had been searching his thoughts all afternoon as he munched a dry sandwich. It took him awhile to realize that the sandwich was the only food he had had in a few days, (since Taruru had failed to provide him with anything despite his promises) which would probably explain his lack of energy. Although he would have liked a bowl of his curry over a sandwich, he wasn't in the mood to be complaining. The back of the ship hosted as a dining area for him and Garuru's platoon as they took a break from searching, and to Kururu's misfortune, Tororo had joined them. The only one who was missing was Pururu.

As the others chatted amongst themselves Kururu sat alone silently eating, and, at the same time, groped around his memories for any information that would become useful to him in what he still suspected would be the near future.

"Kururu…?"

Kururu jumped out of his thoughts realizing someone was speaking to him. He turned halfway around to see Tororo standing over him. "I need to talk to you." he said grimly. Kururu noticed the others had left, to where, he figured probably to go back into Sepron's Face. A frown crossing his lips, he was growing weary of his faction-ing against Tororo. "What do you want?" he sat turning away from him. Tororo exhaled his shoulders dropping.

"I don't want to tell the others but….I found it's location."

Kururu felt himself stiffen after Tororo had spoken. 'Found it?…what?' he was for the first time in his life, dumbfounded. He stood up immediately seizing Tororo, lifting him slightly off the ground. "What do you mean you found it?!" he growled in the boy's face. Tororo gasped, surprised by Kururu's violent question but quickly replied, "I-I found it-O-on the map-I-it's j-just-I-" Tororo stuttered horribly as he spoke and Kururu felt him trembling in his hands. Knowing what Tororo was going to say next, he released him. Tororo stumbled back, letting out a hiccup.

"What did it say?" Kururu asked in a low voice.

"I chose…Kururu Souchou." Tororo answered, after swallowing down his fear. "It's been sending me that message after you were struck by the electric wave earlier. It won't shut up, I-it's-It's-!"

Kururu raised a hand at him, silenced Tororo. Pushing past him he went into the storage room to begin suiting up again. A grim thought lingered in his mind. 'It FOUND me…' He didn't want to believe it was possible, but how…or why…? Shaking his head Kururu stopped with his suit halfway on. His gaze fell down upon his left hand, although bandaged, it was clear that he was trembling. 'EXE….found me…' He'd never close himself into a no-way-out situation, but the feeling was there. 'Exe found me…' His hand closed in tightly around the inner fabric of the suit. He felt a fire ignite once more, his rage returning to him, along with something else. "I'll destroy it." he growled, gritting his teeth. Raising his head, Kururu smiled, a sick and twisted smile. "KUUU-KU-KU-KUU!" he thundered, "I'll destroy it.... once and for all!" Believing he had found his solution, Kururu quickly finished suiting up and was back out into open space in no time.

"966, do you copy Tororo?" he asked over their transmission. There was a pause until Tororo's voice timed in with a response. "I copy you 966. Transmission line check complete. Avoid all communication interferences for twenty seconds of radio silence." Kururu snorted knowing that Tororo was probably using that time to snack on something, what with Kururu taking a joy ride through hell. Sighing, he kept his line open and dived into Sepron's Face once more. The crystal mass greeted him with an eerie static noise, as if a broken radio was nearby and playing on full blast. "Radio silence terminated. 966 what's your loc?" he heard Tororo ask.

"About 120 meters southwest of the ship," he responded. "Can't you find me on your radar?"

Another pause before Tororo replied. "Go 24 meters to your right from where you are. You'll find one of the largest crystal masses in Sepron's Face. When you see it, fly to the very top of it."

Following his directions Kururu stopped short of a crystal mass that was several 100 meters in both diameter and height. "Huh…" he mused as he begun a journey to the top of it. He stopped again when he noticed something about this crystal mass that was different from the others. It was buzzing. '…What?' he thought, surprised. The crystals of Sepron's face were made to have mass electric charges and high amounts of energy. Not only that, they traded electric waves between each other to balance themselves if too much energy drifted into them. For one to be buzzing meant that it had too much energy in it, and couldn't expel it. Feeling a chill run down his spine Kururu made a mental note of it and continued towards the top.

The crystal seemed to get narrower as it got to the top, however once Kururu finally reached the peak, it was still about twenty meters in diameter or more. The top of the giant mass was a plateau that seemed perfect for landing on. Kururu activated his gravity inducer and touched down on the peak. "Ok now what?" he asked breathing roughly into his mic. There was a brief silence on the other line after he spoke, until there was some rough sounds as if there was a struggle, followed by the sound of a short cut off scream from Tororo. "Tororo, come in!" Kururu said loudly into his mic. Turning from where he was standing Kururu looked back at the ship noticing bright flashes of light erupting from the from windshields where the control room was. Moving off of the private line Kururu accessed the transmission.

"Deathstar-1, come in!" he demanded, switching off his gravity inducers at the same time. Almost immediately Garuru's voice came over the line. "Garuru here, what is it Kururu?" he asked. It was then Tororo responded. "I'm under attack! Requesting assistance-!"

Kururu felt a sudden panic and lifted off of the plateau. However when he finally saw the ship of their attackers he stopped. "You gotta be kidding…" he breathed with a smile.

"Skull-1 reporting in. Do you copy 966?"

Kururu let out a loud laugh as he saw his very own ship docked. "Giroro?!" Garuru's voice exploded over the line. On the ship Giroro stood in the large windshields looking down upon Sepron's Face. His eyes scanned the area until they stopped on a small yellow mass; he smiled.

"966, I think it's about time we go home." Said Giroro, holding the mic up to his mouth. Kururu smiled wide as relief flushed over him. They had come back. All of them had come back for him. "Giroro!" he cried feeling almost too relieved to keep himself together.

"Kururu?"

Tororo's voice came over the line slightly puzzled. Kururu blinked, his hand outstretched towards the ship. "Kururu, what the hell is going on? Are you alright?" Tororo voice sounded again. Kururu blinked again, not believing what he saw. The ship was gone, Giroro was gone. It had been an illusion....?

"I…" he tried to respond. He fell speechless in his self-devastation; his outstretched hand began to tremble. "What was that all about?" Tororo's voice asked in a "WTF" type tone. Kururu let out a gasp, not realizing he had been holding his breath. His mind scrambled for an explanation, and even more for a purpose. His thoughts raced until his gravity inducers reactivated themselves and he violently crashed back down onto the plateau.

"Hey!" he growled into his mic.

"There you are. Kururu, what the hell happened to you? What was all that stuff you said about?" Tororo asked still as confused as he had been.

Kururu shook his head standing up again. "What did I say?" he asked putting a palm to his helmet where his forehead was. "What do you mean, 'What did I say'?!" Tororo exclaimed. "Grruhhh- Let me send over a replay then!"

A silence fell over the transmission until a faint static noise started and Kururu heard his own voice speaking. "Divide, tempest, existence, destruction, light, woman, hell, dark, man, heaven, revenge, savior, never, never, never,"

Kururu froze where he was listening to his voice ramble on and on random words meshed together. "Alright that's enough!" he grumbled, feeling too out of place to listen to it anymore. "Just forget it, we have work to do." he added, getting a better stand on the plateau. "Uhn….right…" Tororo sighed. "I'm sending you the drill right now," he added.

Kururu flinched when a handheld drill appeared out of thin air next to him. He reached out, grasping it in his hand and pulling it toward him to get a better look at it. "30 meters underneath you is EXE. With that drill you should be able to get to it in less than an hour." Tororo instructed. Kururu's expression shifted from between a crooked smile and a twisted scowl several times before he stretched his hand in front of him, holding the drill away. Moving his thumb he activated the drill and the end of it began to spin, picking up speed. He pointed it to the ground beneath him and as the drill spun a heated laser to dig into the crystal. 'Heh, an energized drill…' Kururu thought with a smirk. Digging into the crystal was dangerous since he was splitting energized components, but with an already energized drill it made the cut clean and the parts he were cutting out simply drifted out of the hole and became their own separate small masses amongst the field.

As he drilled a question slipped through Kururu's mind. 'Why…'

"Why didn't you tell the others about this?" he asked over the transmission. Tororo didn't answer for a long time, until finally he heard a faint, "Because you have to find it." he said.

"Eh?"

"It…told me…to…"

Kururu looked up from the drill towards the ship, wondering if Tororo was telling him the truth. EXE spoke to him? It seemed to have said a lot more than he was saying. Despite its words, Tororo had been able to track it's location from the transmission, but what did that have to do with Kururu? It was then he remembered his previous thought.

"It was looking for me…It only wants…" His drill jumped, interrupting his thoughts. Using whatever strength he could muster he kept the drill still as it continued cutting into the mass. "How much did you learn from it?" he asked looking back up at the ship.

However, that was a question Tororo did not answer. "Tororo?" he asked after a long silence. He hated how they had been fighting earlier only to turn around and end up working together. "Even if everything in the world becomes my enemy, will you protect me?" he heard Tororo whisper. Blinking Kururu turned his head to the side. "What the-"

"If I could do it all over again I'd give them back. Because of the shadows that have consumed me, you turned away." It was then Kururu realized that Tororo sounded like he was reading from a book, or rather, a message. He was reading aloud what EXE had said.

"I feel your fear,
I love your fear,
I feel your presence,
I hate it so.

We wonder what's real,
And I know,
I want you to know,
I want you to be,
Destiny is calling from the shadows,
The destruction of a beautiful dawn on the horizon of life,
Existence is loathing itself once more alone in the light,
I have a choice,
One beautiful choice that makes me real,
I chose….Kururu Souchou.

If I could be born again,
I'd wish for you to play with me."

Tororo sounded like he was crying as he finished the message from EXE. Kururu had been too lost in the mystery of the words it had spoken. 'It's…alive?' What made the message so strange was that, EXE sounded like it was sad. Like it was looking for someone to take care of it. 'No way in hell did I come all the way out here to play babysitter,' he thought sheepishly as his eyes fell down to the drill. More random thoughts slipped through his mind as he tried to ignore Tororo's faint sobs over the line. He didn't want to hear him cry, but he didn't want to yell at him, because he couldn't understand the ferocity of EXE's message. Time passed and he seemed to collect himself again despite being alone up in the control room. Kururu's heart felt heavy as he stood alone in Sepron's Face at the same time, hunched over a drill that would bring him to the harbinger of destruction.

After a silence that seemed longer than life itself, Tororo spoke up again. "Only one and a half more meters." he said. Kururu looked down at the drill realizing just how far he had gotten down. After a few more seconds his drill shut off automatically. A nervousness sprung into Kururu as he realized how close he was to EXE. His eyes laid sight on a small metal box he had not seen for several years. His eyes laid sight on the only tool that had the potential to destroy the entire universe, and that it was alive. "Kururu! Your drill cut a hole into the case! Step back!" Tororo's voice shouted over the line. Kururu looked up at the ship puzzled, however, when he looked back down he saw what he was talking about.

A static roar came up from the hole followed by a banshee's cry made of electrical waves. "KURURU SOUCHOU KURURU SOUCHOU KURURU SOUCHOU!!!!" Hit by the sound waves with the intensity of a freight train. Kururu tried his best to cover his ears as he fell to his knees. His glasses shattered on his face as a huge line of electricity erupted from the hole shooting high into the space above him. "KURURU GET OUT OF THERE!" Tororo cried over the line. Kururu sat motionless on the plateau looking up as the freed EXE rained down upon him.

"KURURUUUUUUUUU!!!!"

AN- I've come back from the dead? I do that a lot actually =/ The next chapter is already completed, and to those who have been watching this story, you can be relieved that, holy crap I found a proof reader. She's a good friend of mine and she's good at what she does. She's not apart of , so, if you want to thank her for the work, her alias is 'Oba-san'. She'll be watching the reviews for this story. (it's because of her I will be releasing new chapters and getting them out timely)

On another important note: I received a number of questions about the KuruXGiro references. I will be firm when I say; This will not be a pairing fic. I did not write this fic to make it into a pairing, nor do I have any intentions of really pairing them up. Why? Because it has nothing to do with the actual story line I planned. In fact, the real reason I made those references was that it IS canon. One of my goals in this fic was to keep as many canon technicalities when writing this. That way the story seems more real, or in a sense, more possible and believable. Just like the KeroxTama references in the show, if you've watched the later episodes (though they are not subbed yet) Kururu technically develops a crush for Giroro. However, they leave it unclear if he really means it, or is just messing with Giroro's head.

Also I want to thank the recent reviewers because they inspired me to continue working on this. (Was surprised to see people digging this up from the pages of fanfics lol and RRing) Thanks guys!

-PW2