Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
Wow. The story is almost done. Next chapter is technically the final chapter and then after that the epilogue. Soon it will be over. Yay!
So Keroro's alive and well... Kululu wondered about what being unmutated would be like. Had that meant that Keroro had his memories back?
He remembered Giroro talking about it during their fight the previous day. Giroro had certainly gotten his memories back, that much was clear. But Giroro had also become a Pekoponian, for some reason. Probably from one of his old inventions ,most likely.
Still... the aspect that everybody except him was recovering their memories made Kululu uncomfortable. No, not uncomfortable, jealous.
The days before his mutation were still a blur. He was still weak in that aspect. He could barely remember what Mois even looked like, besides her sparkly golden eyes. Sometimes he could see her lips in his head, moving, but he couldn't hear her voice.
He could see her sometimes, briefly, a blur. But he didn't know anything that they had done together, or what she was like. He didn't know a single thing about her. Did she have blonde or silver hair, for one? He didn't know.
He wanted his memories. But they'd never return to him. For some reason, though, Giroro had his memories and he hadn't had to give up his mutation to get them.
Kululu was mad. Not only that, but Giroro constantly claimed that Angol Mois spoke to him. Why wouldn't she ever speak to him?
Wait... if she wasn't eaten by Tamama... was she in cahoots with him? Kululu wondered. It made sense to him. What if she and Tamama had pretended she was eaten to trick him? To hurt him physiologically. He still remembered the pain he had experienced in learning she was dead. It had never left him.
If Giroro was right and she wasn't dead, she was working with Tamama to trick him. And his feelings for her had poisoned his heart, making him fall for her tricks one after another.
He was shaking. He was no longer crying on the ground, but his mind was swirling with scenario after scenario about this strange girl.
Becoming a power-hungry dictator with no memories was stressful, and Kululu was finally completely losing it mentally.
He finally just laughed and laughed. He knew only one thing, and that was that he was in love with Mois. But with all this pain, he didn't want to be.
She was constantly in his head poisoning him.
"Ku, ku, ku, ku! I don't even care anymore," he lied. He had to focus on actual important things, things that were important to his life here and now.
His power. And he remembered how Giroro had spoken of Keroro becoming cured from his mutation. It was likely Giroro would get everybody cured eventually.
And that included Kululu. His mutation had made him too strong now for him to go back to the way things were. It was the first time in Kululu's life that he was strong and wasn't blind.
They won't get to me. Kululu pressed a button of a small device he had put on Dororo while Dororo wasn't paying attention. It would let him listen in on any nearby conversations Dororo might be present for.
He'd figure out what they were planning. And then he'd eliminate them, for all the wrongs they had done to him.
"Ku, ku, ku... How dare Giroro make me think she's alive. That she tricked me," he cursed.
"So... it's been confirmed?" Momoka asked Paul and her father, in front of Dororo's tank.
"Yes," said her father. "Although Kululu's solution of using machinery to make the planet's core run seems ideal, it won't actually work. No matter how smart he is, without the natural energy, a half-real and half-artificial planet won't run. The planet is doomed unless we can somehow return that spirit energy to it."
Natsumi cursed under her breath. Giroro stomped his feet. Keroro looked worried.
Fuyuki tried to remain optimistic. "I'm sure we can get the spirits back if we really try!" Aki held her son closer to her, worried for him.
Koyuki frowned. She knew there were no spirits. It seemed Mois really was their only hope.
Kululu was shocked as the Pekoponians continued discussing his plans, and how the solution he had found seemed to not be successful.
Quickly, he ran the math. He had already submitted the gears to try to make the core run, but as they had thought, the planet was still dying.
Kululu wasn't the solution. And now he had to figure out what to do. This planet was his. He was the ruler of this planet now!
But it was dying, and Kululu couldn't save it. Did he act like an idiot and help everybody, or did he cut his losses?
If I was stupid and good-willed like they are, I'd join them. But... if I joined them, they'd insist I should go back to normal. I'd lose my sight. His sight was so important to him. He liked being able to see. He liked it so much.
He liked being powerful. He was afraid of becoming weak again. He'd never let them unmutate them.
I guess working with them really isn't an option then. So... I must cut my losses, he decided. If the planet was going to die, it should go out with a bang.
Kululu's lips formed a deranged smile. He'd destroy the planet. If he was going to die on this miserable mud ball, it should definitely go out in style. Not by natural causes, but by him.
Ku. I'll be like a planet destroyer. I wonder if any Keronian has ever experienced destroying an entire planet before. "Planet destroyer..." He spoke those words out loud from his thoughts. The word had a certain sense of nostalgia. What he would inevitably become.
It was a fine occupation.
I won't be an invader any longer. I'm going to become a planet destroyer! he decided. It would be his last act as the planet's invader.
He wondered why that word had such a sense of nostalgia. Had Mois been a planet destroyer? He smiled. That sounds about right. Her being a planet destroyer. It made him a bit happy to actually know something about her. In his last moments he might feel a little bit closer to her.
He didn't say any of his plan out loud. If Mois was alive and hiding from him, she'd leave to tell Giroro of his plans. She'd betray him.
He still didn't know, though. Was she alive? Dead? He was so uncertain and confused. His mind was perplexed.
"Mois... you there?" he asked. She didn't answer, of course, as she always did. "I know you're not there, but... if you are, can I ask a question just for you think about?" His voice sounded bitter, angry at her. Hurt. "Did I mean anything to you? Anything at all?" He crossed his arms bitterly.
She wouldn't answer.
"I can't see you... But god does it hurt to not have you here. I... I wish I could see you..." A small memory sparked in his mind of her looking at him and him shivering. Had he been frightened of her? He wished he could afford that luxury now, of being frightened of her. All he wanted was to have her back, though. "I want to see you. See you looking at me. I want you back." He knew putting his feelings out there wouldn't help him. But he felt so lonely, so incredibly lonely.
He felt some sort of force push up against his lips. He didn't know what it was, but something was definitely there. He closed his eyes and let it up against him. He tried not to cry in happiness that he hoped that this was finally her and she was giving him a sign. A tear slipped down his cheek anyway, as he tried to kiss whatever was on him.
Eventually the force pulled away. Kululu smiled softly. "I... I can't feel anything. I know that was you. But I don't know what was pressed up against me. Was it your finger? Your lips? Or something you were holding? I'll never know," he spoke. He felt a small amount of energy energizing him, though. Was it her spiritual energy? Like she had given the planet when she bled.
He felt the force drape itself over him. He didn't know if she was hugging him, or trying to push him somewhere.
He felt calmer, imagining that he was in her arms. He calmly tried to remember things about her, finally reaching the conclusion that she had most definitely been a planet destroyer.
Kululu smiled. He felt at peace with his decision to kill everybody. She would have liked it.
As he was held in her arms, seeping off her energy, he thought about what this meant. She was too kind to trick him, but that meant that she was definitely dead. But at the same time she was there with him, like Giroro had concluded.
Ah. She's a ghost. That must be it, he realized. That made sense. She was on the spirit plane, after all. He cuddled up to her, nuzzling his face into some part of her body. He wasn't sure what it was - all he knew was it was round. Was it her head, or her boobs? He assumed breasts, because there were two of them. He didn't remember her having two heads.
You wanted the planet destroyed, didn't you? He could finally remember her voice, softly uttering an "Armaggedon!" and hitting the ground. She had loved planetary destruction. She would have been proud.
And when I die on this planet, I'll finally be able to see you. We'll be together in death. I'll be with you again. Kululu smiled. The decision to kill himself and the planet had been quite an easy one.
He reached his hands up higher on her body, trying to figure out where the force stopped. He shaped out her face, and eventually got his hand on her cheek, bringing his lips up to where he hoped her mouth was, giving her a soft kiss on the lips.
"I want to see you smile," he spoke softly. Hopefully, in the moments he was obliterated from planetary destruction, he'd see her smile. She'd be there. He felt happier and happier with his choice to kill everybody the more he thought about it. "I love you," he finally whispered to her.
He felt her press up against his lips again. This time his common sense told him that she was kissing him. He kissed back, happily.
Eventually he pulled away. He knew Tamama had been wrong about the fact that she wasn't his girlfriend.
"I need to work now, Mois," he told her. She couldn't know he was destroying the planet. It would be a surprise, just for her. "Would you let me work in peace?" he requested. "I want to make you something. A surprise. You can leave and talk to Giroro or whatever if you want, but please leave me to work for now."
He felt her leave him, and he smiled. She'd be so happy when this planet was dead.
So he got to work when the door shut behind her.
Angol Mois got back to the Nishizawa fortress. Giroro polished his gun in stress.
"I'm back," she said.
Giroro perked up. "She's back! She's here!" he told them. "We can ask advice from her now."
"But we can't hear her," Natsumi pointed out.
"I'll try to establish a better link with her, to focus on her more and translate for you," he offered. He turned to where Mois's voice was coming from. "Mois... The core is dying. Do you know what to do?"
"I do not," she admitted. "The spirits have left this planet. The core won't be able to work, soon... it will die."
"Do you want it to die, woman?" Tamama accused. "You've always wanted this planet to die!"
"I don't want Pekopon to die. All the evil Pekoponians are gone, so my job is done. And I want desperately for my friends to live. That's why I came to this plane, after all. I've done so much trying to get you to survive," she told Tamama.
Giroro translated. "She says she doesn't want us to die, she is doing everything in her power to get us to live. All the evil Pekoponians are dead so she has no reason to want this planet dead."
Natsumi nodded. Mois wanting to help would play a big part in helping them.
"Hey... Mois's a spirit, kind of, right?" Fuyuki brought up. "Or does she count as a mutated sense? I mean she's on the spirit plane, technically. That's why we can't see her, right?"
"Yeah...And her blood sprouted plant life. It returned energy to the core," Giroro recalled.
"You're not thinking of bleeding me, are you?" asked Mois.
Fuyuki didn't hear her. "What if we somehow bonded Mois to the core? Made her into a spiritual protector of the planet, sealed their energy together? Would that save the planet?"
Koyuki thought for a moment. So did Mois. Fuyuki sketched up the plans, trying to put his occult knowledge to good work. "It could be a possibility."
"But then Mois couldn't leave the planet. She'd be stuck here forever," Saburo pointed out.
"Both my Angolian and Pekoponian bodies have been obliterated. At the moment, I'm stuck in the spirit plane, so I'd be willing. Not like I have much of a choice," Mois laughed.
Giroro translated again. "She's says she'd be okay with it."
Paul, Momoka's father, and Saburo worked with the science side of the occult facts. Koyuki helped input her spiritual knowledge, learning that bonding Mois to the core, making her into a spiritual protector,would in fact save the planet as predicted.
"But... how do we bond Mois to the core?" Natsumi asked, confused. They seemed to be missing that crucial detail.
"I know a ritual," Koyuki confessed. "It's an ancient ritual usually used to trap evil spirits, but it can be used to trap any spirit. Then we could release her out of the talisman we would put her in, bonding her to a certain spot in the ground that we choose, and she could get into the core. Bonding her to the land might let us see her again!" Koyuki suggested. She took a talisman out of her pocket that she could use, one that she happened to have on her for whatever reason.
"I'd like that. I'd like to be seen again," Mois smiled. "I want to see you all, to talk to you. It would be especially nice to be able to talk to Kululu. I mean, he finally realized I was alive today, so that's some progress."
"She says she's down for it," Giroro responded, cutting out the bit about Kululu. He assumed that was their private life.
"Let's do the ritual, then," Natsumi agreed.
Koyuki had already started painting the ground. "I need five objects that might channel energy," she said.
Saburo handed over his inkless pen. Hopefully that would work. It was special to him, being the only object of his that Kululu had given him, that he had on him.
Keroro put down Dororo's sword, not asking permission, like always.
Momoka put down a Fuyuki doll. Fuyuki grimaced.
"Will that hurt the doll?" he asked. "Or will it be cool that it's channeling spirit energy?"
Momoka shrugged. She didn't know.
Natsumi put down a picture Giroro had drawn her. It was no loss if it was broken, because it was a horribly drawn picture. Actually, having no eyes probably helped for once. But Giroro didn't need to know that. "It's special to me," she lied, hoping Giroro would take the bait.
He did. He smiled proudly.
Aki put down her wedding ring.
"Stand here, Mois." Koyuki put the talisman on the ground in the middle.
"She says she's standing," Giroro told them.
"Enim si tirips, tcejbo, namuh, a ni tirips siht part." Koyuki chanted this backward message thirteen times. Soon enough, a flash of light went around the circle Koyuki had made, and they saw a brief flash of Mois being sucked up into the necklace talisman.
"She screamed... It apparently hurt a lot." Giroro kept them posted. They didn't really want to know.
"First step done!" Natsumi smiled. At that very moment, the planet started shaking.
"What the heck? Mois's gone! Why is the planet shaking like she's trying to destroy it, then?" Keroro asked.
Paul frowned and did a diagnosis. "It seems machines are drilling into the planet prematurely, trying to take down the core. The planet may not be saved, after all."
"Kululu. Those must be Kululu's machines," Natsumi cursed, clenching her fist.
"Why would he do this? He'll die, too!" Giroro realized.
"We have to stop him!" she yelled.
They all nodded, and everybody headed off to stop him - well, most of them - all except the adults. They needed to dissuade him.
"You can have the planet!" Natsumi told him, "You can have your city! Just let us save the planet and let things live." She was the one who stepped forward to Kululu first, bringing her friends behind her. He was in the middle of the street, an army of clockwork soldiers surrounding him.
"Ku, ku, ku!" Kululu laughed in their face. "Let me think... Nah, I don't think so!"
"Why? Why would you do this?" Keroro asked.
"I want to," Kululu said simply. "I'm going to destroy the planet. I like the new me. I won't let you change me back. The planet's dying anyway, so I'm going to make everything remain the same. I'm going to kill everyone. And there's nothing you can do to stop me." He ordered his soldiers to attack.
Everybody was shocked. They had thought Kululu wasn't that evil. But he clearly was.
He was going to kill them all.
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