I kind of wanted to get two chapters done today and two tomorrow, finishing the story, but I just started a ton of medication for this medical procedure I have to go through on friday and about towards the end of this chapter they started kicking in and now I feel pretty darn awful.
Anyway, stuffedcrustlord, I wanted Fuyuki to brush Natsumi off, to kind of relate to Giroro's talk of wrong time wrong place of when he talked to her, as sort of a parallel? But I can see why I should have dealt with it better, and if I ever revise this I will try to revise that chapter. (That chapter wasn't the best, I mentioned some pick up lines by Keroro being cut out because I wanted to finish up before my sister went to bed, but I also cut out another scene which was a flashback of Fuyuki trying to make Angol Mois a Momoka doll too. Which I was disappointed that I cut out, so it honestly was not my proudest chapter. I should probably focus more on quality instead of getting these out by a deadline.)
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Natsumi wheezed as Fuyuki, Keroro and Angol Mois vanished. She wanted to focus on how Fuyuki had brushed her off, but her heart was still pounding from the encounter with Keroro.
She had frozen up in the face of his evil.
"You okay, Tamama?" Giroro asked, holding onto his arm to try to stop the bleeding. Tamama was rubbing his neck.
"He... He stopped," Tamama moaned out.
"I hope he stays dead. But knowing Fuyuki, he probably has something planned to bring him back," Giroro growled out.
Natsumi approached Giroro and Tamama. "Should we go back to the underground city? You've both got wounds that need treating." She reached forward and grabbed Giroro's arm that had puncture marks in it where Keroro's teeth had been.
Giroro let Natsumi hold it.
"Let's just find shelter," Tamama suggested, taking charge. "Being in the city made us lose track of time. I didn't even know the Harvest had started. And we need to deal with Mr. Sergeant. We can't just let him go off and kill more people."
"We need to treat both your wounds first!" Natsumi pointed out. She was sure Koyuki had taught her how to bandage wounds with herbs. Her lessons still remained new in her head, like they had only been a few months ago instead of eleven or twelve years.
"There's a small abandoned shed over there," Giroro pointed. "We can rest up there while I try to purify my arm from Keroro's saliva. Yuck." Giroro tried to make a lighthearted joke out of his former best friend coming back to life and biting him.
"Think you might turn into a zombie?" Natsumi asked, trying to go along with Giroro to lighten the mood.
Giroro smiled softly. "If I did, I probably deserve it."
Natsumi frowned at him.
Tamama wanted to be out and about, planning the next move against Fuyuki and that woman, but Natsumi insisted he lied down on some moss.
She had to take care of the two of them. She had managed to get away with the least injuries, after all.
"I'm sorry," Giroro told her, as she tried to clean his wound.
"I know. I'm sorry, too, that my plan didn't work. Fuyuki just sort of brushed me off... Told me we'd talk later. He felt like the Harvest was a priority over me. Makes a little sense. He's been preparing for this all year, and he's changed so much. But I've been dead to him for twelve years! Well, not dead, just sleeping. I guess since Keroro was actually dead in his mind and he knew I was fine, the stupid frog was the priority." Natsumi went off on a tangent.
"No. I meant I'm sorry for killing Saburo. I shouldn't have done it. I killed someone you dearly cared about." Giroro frowned. "And I wasn't thinking about how wrong it was, just that I was sorry that you were mad at me for a long time. I... I always saw it as him or me. That it was either one or the other. When Fuyuki told us only one of us would live I didn't even try to think outside the box. I should have fought against the real enemy- Fuyuki. We could have fought together. But instead I murdered Saburo."
Natsumi stopped cleaning Giroro's wound for a moment and looked at Giroro. "I'm sorry, too," she apologized.
"You don't have to be sorry. Not returning my feelings and being mad at me for killing the guy you liked are both understandable." Giroro told her.
"No, I'm sorry for not trying to understand you," she told him. "I've been asleep for twelve years. I missed all the terrible things this future threw at you. I didn't even try to understand the situation you were in. I just wondered why you didn't fight harder. I hadn't been repeatedly broken by the time that passed like you have. I didn't see friends, people I loved, die. I missed all that. So... I was still in shock. I couldn't empathize correctly with your struggles." She tried to find the right words to explain herself.
"Natsumi. Sometimes we need someone who hasn't been broken. Who can still fight. You are needed in this world. You can't empathize, but that's all right. At least you're trying, and at least you've never given up. Unlike me. I gave up on a lot of things. Keroro... I didn't go back for. I let him sacrifice himself for us. I just saluted him like the good captain he was, so he got captured and tortured as a prisoner of war. My brother... The war. I kept fighting, but it was a pointless cause. Fuyuki... I gave up on and left. Saburo's life... I gave up. But most importantly I gave up on you. I didn't realize my warrior princess could fight against her sickness. You got better in record time, and that never occurred to me. So I'm sorry," Giroro apologized.
Natsumi pressed some leaves to his arm. She hugged him afterward. "It's all right. We've both gone through different things... Different struggles." She smiled. "But together, we can cover each others weaknesses."
"Natsumi. You're amazing," Giroro told her.
"Just don't fricken confess to killing my friends while I'm kissing you. Wait till when we have time to actually talk about things like now." Natsumi growled.
Giroro nodded. It was a good thing he hadn't killed any of her other friends. Had he? He frowned. He sure hoped not.
His last memories were of his own screams. The constant torture that he had endured. His begging for it to stop.
Keroro looked cruelly at the people below him as he ripped out some throats. Some of them begged for mercy. But he had never been given mercy in his final moments.
"No mercy. None," he hissed, pulling out another spine. He loved the snapping sound.
Images swirled around his head of his platoon mates. He remembered very little of them. No... he remembered some things about them, he just didn't have the capacity to feel anything about them. His only feelings, his only real feelings, echoed his final moments.
He remembered the war. It was raw in his mind, but he couldn't access the feelings that had to do with it. He remembered Dororo and apologizing to him. But he no longer felt sorry. Dororo had left him, he hadn't tried to rescue him from his pain and torture. He had given up, happy to have his life spared thanks to Keroro's actions.
He remembered Giroro, his supposed friend. He had felt very little for Giroro in his final moments. He hadn't thought about him at all. Perhaps he had wanted his platoon to be safe, but he wasn't sure. He couldn't remember. He remembered Giroro shooting at him a lot. Did that mean the two of them weren't close.
He assumed so. Perhaps Giroro would be a delicious meal like Dororo had been.
He remembered Kululu a little bit. Not much. Mostly indifference there from both parties. He didn't think much about his intelligence officer. He hadn't thought at all about Kululu in his final moments.
But he did remember Tamama. He remembered handing him a letter addressed to Mois. What had the letter said again?
I'm sorry, Keroro recalled. But he wasn't sorry.
The memories of Tamama crying over him littered his head. What had he felt during that moment to see one of his friends crying over him? Had it been a similar feeling to the one he had felt when Tamama's life had almost expired by his hand?
Why couldn't I kill him? Why... did I feel something? Was it guilt? I'm supposed to feel only bloodlust. Pain, from when I died. I need to make everyone experience my pain. So... why couldn't I? Keroro wondered.
There was one person besides his platoon he remembered thinking a lot about in his final moments. Perhaps his feelings for her were the rawest. Perhaps his feelings toward her might answer some of his questions about what he felt, or how he could feel things.
After washing his hands of the blood of some people he had killed for the Harvest, he approached Angol Mois. She smiled as she saw him coming.
"Uncle!" she gratefully greeted. Keroro gave a stiff nod to her.
He knew her. Perhaps even a little better than he knew Fuyuki. Fuyuki and Mois both resurrected him every year, but it had been Mois he had thought of the most in his final moments, so it was Mois he felt the least indifferent with.
He felt things. And although those things weren't the least bit positive, at least they were things.
"We were dating before I died, correct?" Keroro asked.
"We are dating," Mois corrected. She gave him a small smile. This was the first time Keroro had ever asked about their relationship.
"I remember. You kissed me and we started dating," said Keroro.
"No. We had started dating before that. But I can hardly blame you for having your memories jumbled." She tried to be kind and understanding. "I asked you out before that," she carefully corrected, not to make him angry.
Keroro shook his head. "I accepted that as a friendly hang out session, I believe. The old me did, at least. We started dating after you kissed me. At least, that was when I become aware that we were dating."
Mois looked a little shocked. She hadn't known that.
"I remember thinking about that kiss a lot in my final moments," Keroro admitted, twiddling his thumbs. "I wonder if I still feel the same about it as I did back then." He pulled Mois downward to his eye level and kissed her squarely on the lips, pressing his lips as hard as he could against her.
It was short - it lasted four mere seconds - and Angol Mois didn't know whether to be confused or feel happy. But as soon as Keroro pulled away, she knew what her feelings were - fear. The look he gave her made even a shudder go up her spine. She knew rage was going through him, and the rage was directed solely at her.
"I feel exactly the same. I hate it," Keroro told her coldly. "And by comparison, I must hate you."
"B-but..." Mois's voice made a small squeak. It was barely a whisper.
"I don't know why I was such a wimp to be able to go through with it before. To not tell you how revolting it was. I mean, you're completely useless to me! Why did you have to push me into that relationship? I died still your boyfriend. I couldn't be free one moment. And I died because I was a bad boyfriend!" he yelled at her. He laughed. "It's your fault I died. If you never kissed me, if we never dated, they might have released me for just being your friend, but no, because I hated kissing you, I died." He approached closer to her, his eyes staring right at her.
Mois tried not to cry at Keroro's words. Deep down she knew his death had always been her fault.
"You disgust me," he told her. "If there's someone I hate in this world the most, it's you. You aren't even worth eating." With a flick of his wrist, hemysteriously flung body flung her against a wall.
Mois crumpled to the ground.
"I'm going to go kill some more people. You do whatever pathetic useless things you do." Keroro left her.
And Mois cried at his words, and how bruised she felt as she tried to get out of the wall rubble.
"Fuyuki." Keroro went to Fuyuki before he went off to kill more people to relieve himself from his encounter with Mois.
Fuyuki was busy looking at a picture of his sister, wondering if he should have spoken to her. No. Keroro's only alive once a week. Now that Natsumi is... somehow back, I have an entire lifetime to speak to her. I will reunite with her and show her why I did all this, make her understand me after Keroro is better, Fuyuki thought to himself. He loved his sister, but Keroro was the first priority. He didn't need her to not understand and have her accidentally killed the same way their mother had been.
"I want you to change the orders of your forces," Keroro requested.
"What?" Fuyuki asked. "We're trying to locate Giroro and Tamama. Isn't that what you want?"
"I want all forces dedicated to bringing me Tamama. It'll go faster if they focus on one of them. Just... bring me Tamama," Keroro ordered.
Fuyuki nodded, but was confused. Why Tamama? Did Keroro feel drawn to him? Was... there a chance that Tamama was the soul he was looking for?
This was the first time Keroro had seemed so drawn to someone.
"Don't worry, Sarge. I will." Fuyuki smiled. Tamama must be the soul he needed. Not exactly the purest, but it needed to be a pure soul that fitted with Keroro's. And Keroro wasn't exactly the purest person there was originally.
Keroro smiled. "Good."
Kululu was on his computer in his lab. Now that he was considering an alliance with Tamama, he had to pull his own weight. That meant showing him why he was useful and helping him. So he looked up his location on satellites, something that he had neglected to mention to Fuyuki and Mois.
He could warn them now if forces were approaching.
"Kululu." He heard Mois approaching, and he switched off his monitor. Spinning around in his chair he turned to her.
"Mois, what is it?" he asked. She was cradling her arm, looking pretty bruised. "Mois! What happened?"
"I just wanted some bandages. Got any?" se asked. Kululu nodded and hurriedly got out some gauze. "I fell into a wall. Crumpled onto me. Funny, huh?" she lied.
Kululu didn't look like he believed her. He knew who had that sort of power power, who liked to throw people into walls.
"Captain did it?" he asked. Mois looked a little glum.
"We got in a fight. He... He said I revolted him." Her lip quivered as tears rolled down her cheeks. Kululu patched her up.
He hated having to do this, patch her up like this. He sighed. "This has to end, Mois. You can't just go on trying to protect this guy if he hates you and is going to do stuff like this to you."
Mois looked down at Kululu. "You don't understand! Uncle is only so mean to me because he's not really like himself. He's not usually like this! When Uncle gets back to normal he'll need me again. He'll be kind. I know it!" she insisted.
"What if he doesn't? This is wrong, Mois. You've done so much for this guy and he shouldn't hurt you this way," Kululu pointed out. He sounded angry.
"He needs me. I need to help him," she stubbornly answered. "And I need to be needed. I need him."
"I NEED YOU!" Kululu yelled out, clutching her hand. "Stop this idiocy and stop getting hurt like this. Just... Just stop this," he begged.
Mois pulled him up to her chest, holding him. "I can't. Fuyuki and I have come so far." I have to right the wrongs I did, Uncle. "Thank you... for saying that, Kululu." He could feel she was crying again. He hoped it was from happiness instead of pain.
Yep. I definitely have to end this. I suppose I know which side I'm on now. And it's not the Captain's and Fuyuki's, thought Kululu. No, it was Tamama's.
He reached up and kissed her gently anyway, and sweetly. He hoped to remedy at least some of her pain. He wished she would understand how much he cared, that she didn't need Keroro to need her, that he needed her so much more. But she wouldn't.
So he just kissed her, hoping her tears would someday stop.
Tamama looked out a little peephole in the shed, to make sure no soldiers came to attack them. However, a hoard of Nishizawa employees, Fuyuki's guards, seemed to be marching from the valley toward them.
Kululu was too busy to warn them. Tamama turned to Natsumi and Giroro. They looked ready to flee.
"There looks to be about twenty," he told them.
"We can get away," Giroro reassured, clutching Natsumi's hand.
"How?" She asked. There was no back door. Giroro smiled and took out a grenade.
"Back doors can always be made."
Soon, there was an explosion as a hole was made in the shed.
"It might take some running and navigating to outmaneuver them. Let's split up for now," Tamama suggested. He knew that would even the numbers.
They all nodded, but when they split up in different directions, the soldiers only followed Tamama.
Tamama smiled nonetheless. The blood of the NPG guards would only be on his hands, then. "TAMAMA IMPACT!" he yelled. Then he stopped, getting them all in a concentrated area.
And soon enough, they were gone. Vaporized.
Natsumi was horrified, but Giroro was proud.
They had escaped.
Please review!
Oh also! To the guest reviewer asking about why I didn't find it appropriate to have a pick-up line last chapter, I don't think I communicated my author's note correctly, and I'm sorry. I meant that I couldn't figure out to fit in the pick-up line in context and also (more importantly) I couldn't think up a good pick up line that weren't ice breakers that happen during first meetings. (I'm bad at pick-up lines forgive me)
It wasn't anything like pick-up lines are inappropriate compared to gore, or anything homophobic. Do not fret. I just seem to have not communicated that author's note very well. And I apologize for that.