Keiichi's Faith Chapter 2, an oh my goddess! fanfic

Keiichi's faith

Rel1.2

By Pizzigri

OK! Second chapter up. Enjoy… hope I got the personalities OK and not too OOC.

OC, functional to the story, are mine and, actually © 1220 A.D. Snorri Sturluson. No copyright infringement intended!

On holy ground

Keiichi Morisato wakes up to a muffled explosion and a mild tremor, followed by a very musical scream.

Two girls run by his room, bare feet tapping the wooden floors, shortly afterwards, another small explosion is heard down the corridor.

Then, the very alluring scents of Miso, Tamagoyaki and other traditional Japanese breakfast foods delicately tickle his nose; and finally he becomes aware of the assorted and quiet sounds of cooking in the background.

Belldandy is surely in the kitchen… and Skuld and Urd are fighting again, Keiichi thinks yawning and stirring.

Five past six in the morning, ten minutes before the alarm would go off.

The sun is barely out, casting long shadows through the open Shoji window and bathing the room of light, etching on the opposite wall the shadow pattern of tree branches and leaves, gently wavering in the breeze.

The bedrooms in the living quarters of the Tarikihongan Temple, in which Keiichi and the three Norns live, all have the windows exposed slightly south east, getting the sunrise light in clear days to naturally wake up the occupants.

The young man, after a fast shower, and donning a T-shirt and shorts, walks towards the dining room, where Urd and Skuld are already discussing on something, wondering what in hell made both Deities –especially Urd- wake up way before him on a regular workday. Maybe the sky is falling?

Scratching the back of his head, and with a big smile towards Belldandy, Keiichi enters the dining room.

"Good morning, everyone" he cheerfully greets.

Belldandy replies from the kitchen, "Oh, Keiichi-san, good morning to you! Have you rested well?"

"Hey, Keiichi" Urd smiles, while Skuld retorts in a scandalized tone "coming to breakfast in your boxers, have some modesty!"

"Ah, b-but Skuld, these are shorts, not boxers!", Keiichi defends himself, blushing.

"Whatever! They look like boxers, and that's enough for me!"

"Squirt, please don't torment poor Keiichi" Urd cut in. "We don't want to embarrass him too much this early in the morning… right?"

"Urd, are you trying to change the subject?"

"Uh?"

"Don't you 'Uh!' me! What is the potion you attempted to put in my tea?"

"Ahh, ehm, well…"

A ball with lots of wires sticking out appears in Skuld's hand. Urd manages to whack it outside; a second later, another explosion shakes the temple, and both sister give chase around the dining room, until the first plates appear on the Zataku table, courtesy of Belldandy.

"Keiichi san, do you want me to prepare something special for dinner, this evening?"

"Oh, yes please, Belldandy!"

"Good, so I'll go out shopping downtown in the afternoon for groceries. I'll meet you at 6 PM sharp at Chihiro's shop, will you be so kind to drive us home with your motorcycle?"

"Belldandy, of course! You shouldn't even need to ask!"

Keiichi feels himself thaw out when Belldandy smiles at him.

A minute later, Keiichi observes the Divine social dynamics unfolding before his very eyes. Skuld and Urd finally settling down at the table but still bickering among themselves, Belldandy angelically serving the food and springing back to the kitchen, humming a – literally! – heavenly tune…

Three authentic Goddesses live with him, interact with him, and love him, each in her own way; Urd and Skuld somewhat as a brother, and Bell… well, Bell loves him as…

As if I was the very reason she was born in the first place, millions of years ago. As if… if… Nah. It just boggles the mind… The memory of the most incredible kiss sweeps his mind, and flowers whirling all around him, and her eyes, and…

A whack to the head with a roll of newspaper abruptly interrupts the memory!

"OWWW!"

"I know that look in your eyes! You're thinking of doing something perverted with big sis!"

"Skuld dear, please leave Keiichi-san alone."

Belldandy, hearing the exchange, chastises Skuld with a disapproving tone.

"But, Belldandy! He…"

"Skuld…"

Pouting, the youngest Norn just humphs and turns away from Keiichi.

That was totally unexpected, Keiichi thinks. Skuld hasn't objected to her sister's relationship with me for months! What's going on?

"Listen Skuld, I didn't mean to…"

Urd interrupts the young man. "Don't apologize, Keiichi. It's just that the squirt had a nightmarish vision this night, and now is quite strung. I tried to help her with a potion, but you've witnessed the thanks I get…"

"UUURD! You didn't try to help! That potion smelled like the truth Serum you tried giving me a few months back!"

"Ah? Is that so? What happened, Skuld?" Keiichi timidly interjects.

"It is none of your business!" Skuld swiftly answers.

"Well, technically it is his Business, Squirt… he was in your dream, after all."

Skuld turns to her older sister, with an expression of betrayal on her face.

"Why did you tell him, Urd?"

"Well, he deserves to know, since he's the one that…"

Skuld tackles her older sister, slamming a hand over her mouth. Then, she jumps in a cup of tea, and disappears, taking Urd with her, leaving Keiichi staring and gaping. It takes at least a minute before he can articulate a question.

"Uh, Bell?"

"Yes, Keiichi-san?"

"Ah, yeah, what was all that about?"

"I don't have the slightest idea, actually… however, it does mildly worry me", Belldandy answers, slowly kneeling beside Keiichi, her expression distant.

...

Outside, by the small pond in the garden.

"Why did you tell Keiichi about my vision!"

Urd crossed her arms below her breast. "Because, it involved him. And you still haven't told me what was it about, only that it was bad for Keiichi."

"I-I can't tell you! My visions are never accurate, and besides, you know the rules!"

"Skuld, I know you're not supposed to tell us your visions. But it involves our Keiichi! You can't keep this to yourself! Your visions are actual echoes from the future. Don't you care for Keiichi!"

Skuld squints her eyes shut to stop tears.

"Of course I do. I-I-I really l… lo… care for him, but… look, it is only a glimpse of a possible future, and I am sure that it will not happen. I can guarantee you that! It's within a secondary time branch in any case. I can… it's just that it scared me. Yeah, that's all, it just scared me. The vision was balanced with another perfectly normal timeline, that had a much higher probability anyway."

"You're not convincing me, Squirt. You know perfectly well that lying to yourself to fool me won't work."

Skuld abruptly clams up, and jumps in the pond, disappearing before Urd has a chance to grab her.

"Shucks!"

Urd tries to track her down, to no avail. It's like she never existed on this plane.

Probably some sort of shielding system… she's good at those.

What can I do? Maybe I can access a secondary Yggdrasil Admin node, and possibly hack the timestream prediction database, but to do that I need to return back to Heaven for a couple of hours…

Urd walks back to the Temple's main building, picks up the phone in the hallway and dials a number.

"Hello Ex, Urd here. I need to talk with Peorth a sec. Uh, yeah. Hmm-mm.

Hi Peorth… I… well, I need a favor. Can you grant me a couple hours suspension to visit Heaven? I need to check a few things… no, nothing wrong. Look, I'll really owe you one… Really? OK, thanks. I'll talk to The Gate, then. Ciao."

Replacing the headset, Urd pauses, bracing herself as a shiver jolts her body, as if she were in the middle of a cold draft.

A Foreboding of Dread…

At that moment, the Goddess of the Past feels a presence behind her.

"Urd…"

"Yes, Belldandy?"

"…is something going to happen to Keiichi…? He just left for Chihiro's shop."

"Well… you know Skuld. Even if she did know perfectly the future, she wouldn't be able to tell us. In a way, she warned us that something may happen. I guess all we can do is be prepared."

Urd hugs her younger sister, and whispers to her ear.

"Just try to keep him near yourself, you know… just in case. I'll try to find out what's going on, I'll be back this evening."

Urd kisses her younger sister on her cheek and simply 'plunges' in the floor, disappearing.

…

Late afternoon. Keiichi walks around a bright red Italian sports bike, talking with the last customer of the day just outside of Chihiro's Whirlwind shop.

"…well, Tsukuma-san, my suggestion is to replace the stock double one-in-one exhaust system with a two-in-one Nickel alloy piping exhaust with a single, good Termignoni racing muffler placed high on the right side. That will allow you a much better leaning angle, too. Of course we need to look both at the stock carburetors and airbox. We could either use a Dynojet kit or complete replacement, with a couple 39mm Keihin's, in addition to using a pair of racing ECU's; as for the airbox, we could cut out the top and use a K&N filter."

"How much would I gain?"

"All things considered, opting for the Keihin's and including the clutch upgrade, the tuning should improve performance by 15-18 percent of the overall original horse power; it will however change torque curves too, so you'll actually experience much better performance than you would expect from just the HP increase, especially at low RPM's."

"That sounds great! How much will it take to do everything?"

"I'd say about a week for the actual tuning, but we do not have everything in stock; a '94 900 SS isn't so common in Japan after all, so it really depends on delivery time for the more exotic parts, like the muffler or the Brembo 19mm Radial brake master cylinder. Maybe three weeks. As for a detailed quote for the job, please ask Fujimi-san."

"Thanks Morisato-san."

Keiichi, wiping his hands in a not so clean cotton rag, watches his customer approaching the Whirlwind entrance, while a quite pleased and smiling Chihiro waits for him leaning on the doorframe.

Uhh! Tsukuma-san is not going to smile so much after Chihiro tells him how much it'll cost…, Keiichi comments to himself noting Chihiro's 'cat-waiting-for-the-mouse' attitude.

Slowly shaking his head, Keiichi turns back to the Italian motorcycle and pushes it over to the parking space.

The sun disappeared behind a single cloud in an otherwise clear sky; the air cooled off noticeably, prompting Keiichi to pull up the sleeved upper portion of his mechanic's jumpsuit from his waist and don it over his white T-shirt.

A groan from his stomach reminds the young man that this evening Belldandy promised a special dinner. He looks up to the sky, a sigh escaping his lips curled up into a smile, wondering for the millionth time what makes him so special to earn the love of a Goddess.

Fishing the keys to the padlock to secure the parking area's gate in his jumpsuit's pocket, Keiichi checks his watch: almost six PM. In a few minutes, Bell-chan should meet him with the groceries to return back home to the Tarikihongan temple.

...

Sealing Fate

In one of Heaven's Great Halls of Light, immense spaces with mile high ceilings and walls of crystal, bathed in the purest white radiance, a First Class Goddess glides gently over the arrays of white desks and workstations –part of the Goddess Relief Office main headquarters-, finally softly landing in an exquisitely ornate armchair.

Sinthgunt, Goddess First Class, Second Category, Limited License starts her shift.

Only recently she has earned her First Class License; and for the last thirty or so years, literally a heartbeat in her lifetime, has been assigned the task to grant wishes to worthy Mortals on Earth.

Even among Divine Beings, Sinthgunt is deemed to be kind and ingenuous, and to have a selfless, immensely compassionate and caring nature; her smaller frame and juvenile - almost childlike – forms and curves, and propensity to be very trusting towards everyone, make all her peers, friends and family to be very protective. So much so, that many are quite worried to see her frequently leave on a mission heading for the Mortal Realm.

The old fashioned telephone on the white desk rings with a bright silvery sound, startling Sinthgunt, amiably chatting with a younger Goddess sitting beside her.

"Oh! I did not expect a call for another eight cycles, actually…", Sinthgunt comments to her Supervisor, an elder Goddess named Hlín.

"Dear, it happens sometimes… so hurry up, do answer."

the Goddess answers, her melodious voice intoning, as many times before: "Goddess Technical Helpline, my name is Sinthgunt, how may I help you?"

There's only uncertainty and hesitation in the reply, a rather flat "Uh… I… well…"

"Please hold the line, I'll be right there shortly!", the Goddess chirps happily in the handset.

As soon as the goddess hangs up, Hlín's outstretched hands glow.

"Sinthgunt, please stand by for prompt Case File download."

The data flows through the Divine Link to Yggdrasil, directly to Sinthgunt's mind; normally, the Case File dossier would have been downloaded at least three cycles – about six minutes - before the call, so that the Goddess answering would be able to have a very good idea of the Mortal's possible wishes and be prepared.

In this case, however, there's no time to thoroughly study the data.

Sinthgunt hesitates.

"Girl, is anything wrong?", Hlín asks, noting her pause.

"No, My Lady… just a foreboding", Sinthgunt answers, smiling.

"I can have Fulla replace you, she has much more experience, and…"

"Please, My Lady, it is my duty. But, thank you for your concern." Then, still smiling, she proceeds to jump in a transparent glass panel, disappearing.

Moments later, an alarm screams, and the background radiance suddenly alternates between pure white and light blue.

A heavenly voice calmly intones: "Secure lines breached. Yggdrasil core database is under attack. Vital data overwritten. Proceed to seal all portals."

"WHAT! Emergency retrieve!", Hlín screams to the shift operators.

"Mylady, Sinthgunt is already over the threshold! The Gate reports full passage thru her! We can't get Sinthgunt back!"

"Mylady, all Bilrost firewalls active! We're locked in!"

"M-my terminal's gone blank!"

"Mine too!"

"All our terminals are rebooting, Mylady!"

"Mylady…"

Hlín, grimacing, is about to bark a series of orders, when a rectangle of light appears hovering in front of the Goddess.

"Peorth here. Hlín, I need you NOW to report to me! We just avoided a full system wide Kernel Panic, and we traced the origin to your node!"

The screen fades, and the Goddess clenches her jaw, her knuckles white. Hlín feels confused, and for the first time in ceturies if not millennia, is scared. "I…" she whispers, almost to herself. Finding her voice again, she turns to a tall, gold haired Goddess.

"Gersemi. I'm sorry for this, but… You're in command. Go by the book, and…" Hlín shakes and bows her head. "…that's all. Sorry."

Then, Hlín disappears in a twirl of Cherry blossom petals.

…

Inside one of the Main Control Tower's maintenance cubicles, Urd was going to shut down the node Console terminal in frustration, having found out that all her credentials, passwords and backdoors had been wiped out from the system, when the alarm surprised her. She nervously looks up from the semitransparent screen hovering before herself, through the gap in the ajar door as a Valkyrie emergency response team gathers just outside the cubicle in full battle uniform.

Urd ducks underneath the desk, cringing.

"Oh shit, they can't be here for me!"

If they find me here, I'll get my license suspended… again! Plus, Peorth'll make me pay…

Her attention is captured by Peorth's scowling face appearing in her terminal's screen.

"Urd! We could use your help, we have a primary security breach, the system's under a partial Denial Of Service attack, I NEED YOU HERE IMMEDIATELY!"

"Is this fast enough?", Urd teases as she practically falls in Peorth's lap, emerging through the hovering monitor in front of the very surprised First Class goddess.

"Come on, Urd! This is serious! Bilrost is firewalled, so all hardlines to Earth are sealed; The Gate currently refuses passage. The attack began from The Relief office nodes, and spread through the secondary data lines; it's Demonic in origin. I suspect a full Nidhogg attack."

Peorth turns her head to a very pale and anguished Hlín, sitting with a blank stare in front of one of the workstations.

"The worst is that a deployed Relief Operator, Goddess First Class, Commercial Limited Sinthgunt, is presently MIA in-country. We lost all contact with her as soon as the firewalls locked Bilrost. We're stalled, and right now, you're our most experienced SysAdmin."

Urd 's face steels, as she opens her stretched hand.

"I want Prime Administrator privileges. Now."

Peorth puffs, closing her eyes and throwing both arms up.

"Granted."

A glowing key appears in Urd's palm, the goddess clenching it for a second. When she opens her hand again, the key disappeared. The white haired Goddess smirks.

"You know I'll have to take over. And that means you'll be in trouble, for both allowing me in Heaven, and surrendering Command."

Peorth shrugs. "It can't be helped, can it?"

Another voice, devoid of any emotion, calmly address both Goddesses.

"Goddess First Class, Special License Unlimited Lind reporting. I have a VCSAR team ready. I need a hardline open within the next cycle. Please, get on it."

Three Valkyries and nine Cherubs wait in a wing behind Lind.

Urd changes her dress in a flashing vortex to a deep red, purple and gold Divine Combat Uniform, as she takes off towards the Highest Chair.

"Yggdrasil! Requesting SysAdmin access to root, manual hierarchical override, Urd, Norn of the Past. I hereby relieve of command Goddess First Class Peorth."

"Acknowledged. Override complete."

"Prepare to execute code. Begin!"

Sitting on the highest chair, Urd starts singing. The strain on her face is obvious; suddenly, World of Elegance appears behind the Goddess, startling everyone except Peorth and Lind. No one else ever saw Urd's Angel before. Their chorus fills the ether.

In the background, the Supercomputer's heavenly voice detachedly answers.

"Resetting systems… done. Rebooting all systems… done. Purging corrupt databases. Recovering data from parity… done. Recovering delay lines… realigning realities… resetting timeline… Now."

Urd stops singing, almost exhausted. The purest chime echoes around them, propagating throughout all planes of existence.

"Yggdrasil, System report", Urd tiredly requests, sliding back on the chair, World of Elegance fading again within the Goddess' body.

"Timeline 100% secure. Mainframe 89% online. All systems will be 100% online in 1.98884848 cycles. The same estimate to Bilrost redeployment"

Lind grits her teeth. A couple of cycles translates to a subjective Earth time of about four minutes. And that accounting for timeline synchronization, to avoid any timestream delay!

Only The Almighty knows what will happen in those four minutes.

Sorry, real short, I know. But, I've got a busy life right now, plus, my other Urusei Yatsura fanfiction needs attention as well… next chapter is going to be a bit dark.

Please review! Thank you.