Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
It's finally over! I finished it even while on a ton of medications! I'm so proud of myself. Sorry, it gets a little happy. But I tried to wrap things up. Here is the epilogue.
Eleven years later
Natsumi ate dinner with Giroro and Kohizou. As Dororo had asked of her, she had pretty much adopted the boy after the events of the final Harvest. He was a polite boy, always modest and humble, trying to follow the lessons of his dead father well.
Still, she insisted that he didn't call Giroro or her Mom or Dad. The true parents were Koyuki and Dororo and she wanted him to remember that and honor his family.
She loved telling him stories of his mother and father, but sometimes it still filled her heart with distress to know they had been killed. She preferred to shift the blame onto Angol Mois for their deaths, instead of Keroro or her brother.
"Natsumi? Kohizou was just telling us about school," Giroro reminded her, holding her hand gently. It had taken her a long time to get used to the world she lived in, about five years for all the things that had happened to sink in, but she had finally taken her place by Tamama's side and ruled the world.
He was happy for her, but sometimes she remained a little distant, lost in her thoughts.
"I was talking about how I thought the gym should be a little safer for those who can't do the athletic course that the teacher demands. One of my classmates got hurt," Kohizou admitted. He always came to Natsumi with ways to better the world and he had truly taken after Dororo with his love for the planet.
"I'll try to fix things right away. Was it Neroko that got hurt?" Natsumi asked. Neroko was a friend of Kohizou's at school, and a little girl that Tamama had adopted since her family had been killed in the Harvest.
"No. She was the one who pushed the other person and got them hurt." Kohizou blushed, knowing he kept sort of sketchy friends.
Natsumi sighed. Neroko was always getting into trouble.
She was glad, though, that the youth of today could put so much behind them. It had taken a good ten years for society to recover from the Harvest, but the eleventh year was finally approaching and society was having peace.
After dinner, Kohizou cheerfully and humbly washed the dishes as Giroro and Natsumi talked. Although Kohizou wasn't their son and they did insist that he not think of them as his parents, they had married a good eight years after the final Harvest. It had taken Natsumi a long time to try to truthfully understand the horrors Giroro had seen and they had taken it slow, but they were now officially together.
"I regret a lot of things that happened," Giroro admitted, "But I'm amazed at how quickly this planet bounced back and forgot about the Harvest as if it was just a moldy piece of history."
The people barely talked about their former dictators. Instead they tried to search for a more utopian life and live peacefully instead of in fear. The Nishizawa name still held a little fear, but with Momoka in charge instead of Fuyuki, people were healing from that, too.
"It's not just a moldy piece of history, though. It's still happening." Natsumi frowned. The day was approaching when Fuyuki would come back from having repented from his sins. She missed her brother every day, but she knew that the pain she felt was the same that Fuyuki had felt when she was gone.
They would be the same, except she wouldn't make the same terrible choices he did.
"Are you excited to see your brother again?" Giroro asked, hugging his wife. Natsumi nodded.
"I wonder if he's changed... If he's still as terrifying or if he's back to his old self," she wondered. She knew Momoka just assumed he'd be back to his old self, but had said she would accept him no matter what he was.
Momoka had called dibs before her at spending time with Fuyuki. She had been planning the wedding for eleven years now.
She deserved happiness. She had waited so long for it.
"He'll be your brother all the same. Blood is thicker than water, after all," Giroro smiled. He had lost his own brother, but he hoped Natsumi could reclaim hers.
Natsumi smiled and kissed him on the cheek.
Natsumi visited Tamama to prepare for the day Fuyuki and Tamama's enemy would return. She knew Tamama would happily take over both their jobs for the day.
"Sure! I'll cover for you," Tamama offered. He was a great leader. Although he didn't represent the humans' interests like she did, he was still more experienced than she was. And usually Tamama's goal year-round was to rule the planet to the best of his abilities.
There was only one day he threw that job away and completely focused on himself. That was the day Keroro returned every year - November 1st, when the Harvest had originally taken place.
That day people still renowned with fear, but Tamama loved it. It turned out the talisman on Keroro's neck would keep his spirit alive on only one day a year, and he'd come back to the world of the living to be with Tamama, and that was the day that it happened.
Keroro usually spent the whole day with Tamama, and they just did cute boyfriend stuff. Natsumi had seen him a few times, but she knew Tamama would be jealous if she got in the way of his time with Keroro.
She was just happy that Keroro could have at least one day of the year to be alive. She knew as soon as Tamama stopped loving him, or he took the talisman off, he'd be dead again. Just like he was supposed to be.
She was just happy that Tamama had eventually got the happiness he'd yearned for so desperately.
It was the fateful day. She and Momoka held hands in front of where the portal would appear, returning Fuyuki to them.
"I can't wait to see him," Momoka whispered.
"Me too," Natsumi admitted quietly.
The portal opened in front of them. Natsumi held her breath for a moment, almost afraid her brother wouldn't return and that terrible demon would instead.
Fuyuki stepped out, no longer the face of evil that he had once been. Instead his face looked pale, his body looked weak. His eyes looked blank and soulless.
He was truly a pitiful sight.
Stumbling over, he fell into Momoka's arms. The portal closed behind him.
Natsumi looked confused. Weren't Kululu and Mois supposed to come with him?
"Fuyuki! Are you all right?" Momoka covered him in kisses.
"I am now." He clutched her hand.
Natsumi handed him some bread. He looked so weak. "How was it?" she asked. She couldn't be scared of him any longer and the crimes he had committed. He looked so weak.
"Terrible. It... It was a nightmare. It was the worst things imaginable. Indescribable. The pain would never end. But the thought of you... got me through." Fuyuki smiled softly.
"Th-thanks," Natsumi smiled. She knew their bond of siblings was strong.
"I... I was actually talking to Momoka." He caressed Momoka's cheek. Natsumi frowned.
"I missed you so much, Fuyuki," Momoka cried. Fuyuki kissed her.
"I thought of you every moment," he told her.
Natsumi frowned and rubbed her arm awkwardly. Wasn't she going to get a chance to talk to her brother? To reunite? To talk about all the things he did? Wasn't he going to tell her he missed her, too?
Instead Momoka and Fuyuki just kissed in front of her.
"Where's Mois and Kululu?" Natsumi asked, trying to remind him that she was there.
"She... She took being in Hell way better than I did. It took them about a year, but they totally took over the place. It was terrible." Fuyuki shuddered at all the laughing he had heard. "They decided they liked it better there and to rule the underworld together. So they stayed."
Natsumi frowned. Well. That was kind of predictable, and not that surprising. Still she had hoped they had repented a little bit and gotten better, but instead they had fun with their torment?
"To the chapel! It's time to get married!" Momoka declared. Fuyuki smiled.
"I've waited decades for this." He kissed her again.
It actually took Natsumi about two months to finally confront Fuyuki, to see him again.
"Do you think this wouldn't have happened if I hadn't eaten that food?" she asked him when she finally got him alone. She wanted to reunite with him, to talk to him. Be siblings again. But he was so busy with his marriage that she hadn't had time to talk to him.
Fuyuki looked at her sadly. Then he hugged her. "I missed you so much, sis... In the first year, you were all that I thought about. When Keroro died, I just thought everybody around me was going to leave like you were..." He finally cried on her shoulder.
She patted his back. "Do you think I could have prevented this?"
Fuyuki thought for a moment. "If you were here to knock some sense into me, I don't know if things would have gone the same. I would have still been in utter grief. Maybe I would have told Mois about the ritual and had her do everything, just being a passive supporter of hers. I mean, I wasn't the only one suffering from Keroro's death," he admitted. "Don't blame yourself. I made my own choices. And I repented for them. We only have the future now. Not the past."
Natsumi nodded. His answer was insightful, as her brother always had been. "Never do something like that again. Not if Momoka dies. Not if I die. Okay?"
Fuyuki nodded. "I'm sorry for getting so obsessed with bringing him back. I know you wouldn't have done that. If it had been someone like Giroro, or Koyuki who had died, you wouldn't have done what I did. You're smarter," he said.
"I wouldn't have the means," she reminded him with a giggle. "...Were the pictures of his torture really that bad?" She asked finally.
"I would trade ten years in hell to wipe away the memory of one of those pictures," Fuyuki told her solemnly. "Anyone... if they had seen their friend in that position would lose it at least a little."
Natsumi gulped. "You and Mois burned them, right?"
Fuyuki nodded. He held Natsumi close to him again. "I missed you so much."
"I missed you too. But now we have decades to reclaim what we lost. There's no more Harvest now. Don't worry."
Fuyuki clutched his chest. There was always the means to do another Harvest. He just hoped that nobody else, maybe hundreds of years in the future, maybe thousands, would do what he did. He had destroyed the occult books that had how to do it in them, but from what he had heard from the demons, you could never truly destroy the knowledge.
Someday the books would appear again to a desperate soul. And the Harvest would begin anew.
Fuyuki just had to accept that and live in his present and his future. Someone else like Natsumi would appear from the Harvest and stop whoever started it. It would be harder to do it, now that Mois ruled the underworld.
But still, he was scared. Natsumi held him.
Their Harvest was over. But the crimes he committed, and the possibility of it repeating, never would be over.
But at least he was together with his sister. He could live happily. Finally.
Fuyuki smiled between his tears. Life could go to how it was meant to be.
I'm finished! It makes me so happy.
So what now? What story will I work on now.
I'm glad you asked. (Even though you didn't.) The next main priority story I have on the table is another post apocalyptic nuclear warfare sgt frog story, where all the frogs mutate into something closer to the five senses due to radiation. I just wanted to do a five senses AU sort of thing. It will be based on canon instead of a complete AU, like this one was. And Natsumi will be the main character again. (The Hinatas have been living in the base safely like a bomb shelter.)
The other two stories I have planned is a supernatural monster AU. (You know, like werewolves and vampires? I am so sorry) And a Pirate AU, but I haven't made a chapter plan for the pirate AU yet.
The monster one will be ten chapters at the moment and the Five Senses one will be 27 chapters.
Anyway, I'm just glad I'm done.
Please review! Tell me any stories you'd like to see me write. My idea bin of complete character arcs is getting low after all...Somewhere in the twenties or something? I need more.