Morning had passed by with no trouble, other than the helicopter waking everyone up a little too early. Once some of the daily routines were taken care of like changing clothes, eating breakfast, personal hygiene, and morning chores, only one thing remained on their minds. Motoko was followed by the others as they exited the building to the side of the dorms. Like Keitaro said before, there were two buildings, one small, and one much larger.

"Well then, which one should we be trying first", Kitsune asked.

Everyone paused as Motoko held the keys. Sarah spoke up first by saying, "Let's try the small one first."

There was no complaining or objections, since neither of these premises had been entered yet. After finding the right key to opening the door, Motoko clasped the door handle to enter. No one was expecting what was to come next. Keitaro had worked hard on these projects, it was a miracle that he could cram building, eating, chores to carry out, in only a few days. The Aoyama girl entered first to a dark room. As she reached for the light, something immediately struck her in the face.

It was too sudden for her to block the new threat. However, this strike wasn't powerful. It felt soft, and kinda damp against her face. As the wall switch brought light to the room, everyone looked around in disappointment. The small area was no bidder than a person's closet. Around them were various shovels, buckets, and tools. Sarah screamed "EEEEWWWW", as she realized what hit Motoko. The swords-woman pushed off a damp mop from her face. Everyone else giggled from the clumsy mishap.

"What is the meaning of this", Motoko referred to the tool shed.

To everyone's disappointment, Motoko was right. There was nothing really special about this place. It was simply a place to keep supplies. The residents were so used to placing these items either in the closets, or in the attic. It was often a hustle just to find the mop on some days. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to have, but it did feel like a let down to the residents. The enthusiasm was sparked again when Su asked, "What's that over there Motoko?" In another part of the tool shed, was a thick green gate with a lock on it. Behind the gate was a metallic door that look like it could take a hit if someone tried to bust it open.

"Oooh, did Keitaro tell you what was behind there Motoko", Mutsumi asked innocently.

"No, he didn't", Motoko stated while remembering what he said earlier.

"If you go into the smaller one, don't go through the metal door, okay", Keitaro's words repeated in her head.

"Motoko you have the key, open it up", Sarah ordered as her and Su tried to pry the gate opened.

"I...I can not do that", Motoko told the younger girls.

"Huh, why not", Naru questioned Motoko.

"Keitaro asked that we shouldn't go through that door."

"Aaww, why not", Su asked in slight complain.

"I'm not sure", Motoko addressed to not just Su, but everyone else. "However, if Urashima said he doesn't want us to go through that door, then we should respect his wish and stay out of it." Sarah was going to fuss some more before Motoko interrupted, "He'll show us when he wants to."

Naru gave a last glance to whatever was hidden behind the secret door.

"Yeah, I guess you're right Motoko", Naru imputed.

Motoko smiled to the Narusegawa girl. She could tell that she had grown in the last few days. Heck, she had grown herself in a short time, and it was all thanks to Keitaro. Just his presence here changed them much. With his trusting nature, he put Motoko in charge of his keys. He basically left his privacy in her hands, and she didn't want to betray that trust by doing something she wasn't supposed to.

"Come now, let's see what's in the other building", Motoko said as she led everyone else out of the tool shed.

The small equipment room was locked before they all headed for the larger site. It wasn't as big as the dorms, maybe only about a quarter of its size, but it was still pretty impressive. As they continued to walk on, Kanako accidentally kicked something with her foot. She looked down on the ground, and found a basketball. She had never played the game before, but she knew very well what it was for. Kanako picked up the toy and bounced it on the floor once.

She looked around for a hoop, and sure enough, there was one high on the wall at the side of the building. Kanako took a chance to make a score, but it went to no success.

"A miss huh", Kitsune told her friend. "No matter, it was still a pretty good shot."

"Kitsune, Kanako, come look at this", Naru shouted from the door of the structure.

The two residents jogged to the entrance, and were luckily not disappointed like before. The inside of this building was that of a large dojo. It had maple wooden floors, a large training mat in a corner, a sand pit in another, and a small pool that had no water yet.

"Wow, Sempai did all this in only a few days", Shinobu praised her friend in disbelief.

It was a real shocker. This place would be a perfect place to practice his martial arts, or for Motoko use her kendo. Placed out across the dojo were wooden practice dummies, a few punching bags, some bulls eye targets, and even a rubber practice dummy for training children.

"It is pretty nice in her", Naru said as she ran her hands against the white wall.

This however was a mistake. She immediately removed her hand as she felt the stickiness of wet paint.

"Maybe that wasn't such a good idea", Naru said as she held her palm away from herself.

"Hey this is fun", Su said in glee.

Everyone was in a new set of warning as they say Su. She was covered everywhere in pain, almost as if she had rolled around in it.

"Su what have you done" Motoko shouted in shock. "C'mon we have to get you cleaned up!"

Everyone decided it was time to leave, that way no paint dripped on anything else.

Once Su was cleaned off, there was still one more thing that needed to be taken care of...and that was to feed Skinny. No one had seen the small pine martin in some time, and there was even some suspicion that Su could have eaten him already. Without even checking if Skinny was alive or not, Motoko unlocked Keitaro's door to his room. They slid the door quietly, as if they were trying to be sneaky about it. With no sign of any traps or immediate danger, the residents walked into his room. On a nearby shelf, they found Skinny trying to remove a large box from the shelf.

"Skinny", Naru asked.

The pine martin turned around to see everyone else behind him.

"Hey there missy. Where's Boss at?"

"He left for a mission earlier", the Aoyama girl told him.

"He did, already? He didn't even feed me breakfast. I've been trying to open this box for the last half an hour."

"Here, I'll feed you", Kanako offered as she opened the box.

"Cool, thanks missy", the small animal said in appreciation.

As Kanako gave Skinny his required feeding, the others had used this time to look around Keitaro's room. There wasn't much set up yet, just some of the basic things. On the shelves they found some martial arts, track, and cross-country trophies and medals. Kitsune and Naru found a few framed pictures. One was of him and his parents when he was no older than five. There was another of him with his track teammates. Kitsune held one of the pictures as he shook hands with another man. It was signed with a pen in one corner. She had to take a closer look at it to make sure who it was.

"Hey now, that's Jean Claude Van Damme!"

"Who's that", Sarah asked now interested in the picture.

"He's a famous movie star", Kitsune told them as she read the signature out loud. "Best wishes to my biggest fan and best student. Keep up the good work and remember what I taught you. Your trainer, Van Damme."

Kitsune handed the picture for everyone else to see.

"Well how bout that, our Keitaro is famous!"

They looked over at his desk to find new items. Mutsumi picked up what appeared to be some sort of controller. She shook it around a little before asking, "I wonder what this is?" As she held it to her ear, she pushed a small button, causing it to start a thick whining noise. She took it away from her ear to inspect the object further. Seeing another button on the device, Mutsumi instinctively pushed it. An end of the device began to spark with a tiny stream of electricity. Skinny turned his attention away from his now emptied bowl.

"No don't touch that", Skinny warned before taking it away from her.

"What's the matter Skinny", Mutsumi asked as he shut down the machine.

"That's a taser. You shouldn't mess with that."

The tiny mammal started throwing other small devices in a separate box on the floor.

"What is all that", Naru asked the working martin.

"It's all stuff you shouldn't be messing with.

"Really, what about this one", Su said as she held a small cube like device.

"NO, ESPECIALLY NOT THAT ONE!"

Skinny immediately took the device away from Su.

"Why what is it", Sarah questioned.

"I don't know, Boss built it and he doesn't even know?"

"Wait so let me get this straight.", Naru questioned. "Keitaro built that thing, and he doesn't even know what it does?"

"Yeah, he just threw in some machine parts, a few isotopes, and put a button on it. He wants to try it, but he's not sure what it'll do."

"I see", Naru said as she turned her attention back to the desk.

Along side his lamp, there was a small book. The cover read, "Children's Story Time". Naru took the small book in her hands as she skimmed through it. Most of the pages were fairly new, however, the story had visible signs of being reviewed over and over, was "The Ugly Duckling".

"Boss used to read that one a lot."

Naru looked on her shoulder to find Skinny perched there looking at the book as well.

"He used to say something about him being the ugly duckling, and how he wanted to someday be something better."

Naru turned her attention back to the book one last time before closing it for good. As she placed it on the desk, she say a picture from of two people. From all the people in the world, she say herself and Naru in the frame. She remembered that day. It was when they first found out that Keitaro wasn't really a Toudai student. They kicked him out for lying to them back then. Even though he didn't tell the truth about being a Toudai student, Naru went after him. Something inside of her told her to pursue him. Maybe it was because he had the same goal as her...Maybe it was something else.

Whatever it was, Naru eventually found him walk into a photo booth. He was no doubt going to take another sticker picture for his collection. Somehow out of pure impulse, Naru tagged along for the picture too. She teased him for a little bit, saying he didn't lie about never being with a girl before. Such distant memories were now contained in a small frame.

"Such a wonderful memory frozen in time", Naru thought to herself as she held the picture. "I wonder if he still remembers that day?"

"Keitaro" Naru spoke out loudly as she looked into the framed photo.

Elsewhere, Keitaro sneezed. He wasn't sure where it came from. It could have been from an approaching cold, it could have been from the mask he wore, of it could have been from the fact that he was upside down right now. With one hand and his legs, Keitaro remained off the ground as he tapped the buttons on a wall with a metal pen. It was necessary for him to work like this, due to the laser grid on the floor. After hacking the small pad like he was taught to before, the laser grid shut down. As quietly as he could, Keitaro placed his feet flat on the ground.

He stood up successfully with no hint of triggering the alarm. With great caution, Keitaro approached a jet black vault with a spin lock on it. The Urashima scanned the lead casing for any signs of traps, or tampering. Luckily there was none, and Keitaro went to work. Using small rod like device, a thin read laser began to cut through the vault crevice between the door and frame. Keitaro needed a special pair of green lensed glasses for this, to see in the dark, and for protection against the laser.

Somewhere in the shadows, Keitaro felt something move swiftly. He pulled out his gun and pointed it at the shadow. Seeing nothing there but another safe, Keitaro continued with his work. The laser did a neat job of cutting the door off of the safe. With a slight squeak, Keitaro opened the container. Inside was a thick silver cylinder about the size of a thermos.

"Hellooooo, Plasma Enhanced Isotope", Keitaro whispered.

As he reached for the item, a dark slender tail flailed above him. Keitaro didn't know what it was, but he had the feeling that something was behind him. He only had a moment to turn over as someone suddenly pounced on him. Keitaro held the wrist of this much bigger person as he tried to grab Keitaro's mask. At the same time Keitaro's own hand was pinned to the ground by his enemy's.

"Helooooo Keitaro", the person said in a deep husky voice.

It was difficult to see in the dark, but Keitaro could tell who it was. This opponent had long black, spiked hair that ran along his back. He was bigger than Keitaro, with a muscle advantage over him.

"Draconian, why are you here", Keitaro grunted as he tried to push back the enemy.

"For the same reason you're here. the isotope. Still...", Draconian's hand suddenly morphed into a thick scaly, red claw, "...A chance to finish you off is an opportunity that doesn't come every day.

The claw struggled closer and closed to Keitaro's face. He had to think on his feet. Then it hit him...feet. Keitaro roared as he used his better leg muscles to push Draconian off and over him. The enemy hit the wall with a loud thud.

"Sorry Draconian, not today", Keitaro said as he stood up in a defensive pose.

The dragon stood back up while shaking off all feelings of confusion.

"Have you already forgotten Keitaro?"

Keitaro watched as a thick red tail with green spines emerged from Draconian's back.

"I'm the greatest subject from Project Dragon!"

Without any warning, Draconian opened his mouth with great exhalation. However, it wasn't air that passed through his mouth, but flame like a dragon. With nowhere else to run, Keitaro was going to have to brace himself for the impact.

So here's my chapter twenty. Now you all know what Keitaro has been up to since he got to Hinata Sou. As to why he put so much effort into this, you'll find out later. I recently saw "Expendables 2", so that's why I had Keitaro with Jean Claude Van Damme in a picture. Ever since I was in martial arts when I was young, Van Damme was my inspiration. I always loved to see him fight. Plus I have a really mean spin kick that I learned from watching him. Also I hope Keitaro's encounter with Draconian wasn't too close to Spiderman's encounter with the Lizard in "The Amazing Spiderman." Hope you all enjoy and comment.