"It's kind of cliché to say, but we've always been a family, those of us at the Hinata. And family takes care of each other, no matter what."
- Keitaro Urashima; 'Ronin's Paradise'
Chapter III:
Who is the Beautiful Woman Wandering in the Moonlight?
Transformation
May 3, 2006
Hinata Apartments, Hinata City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
2344 hours, local time
The blood red moon hung low in the sky over the still night, partly obscured by passing clouds. In the depths of the night, the apartment building was dark and silent, its occupants slumbering in peaceful, well-earned rest in the aftermath of the rent money fiasco. All, that is, except for one.
Keitaro whimpered quietly in his futon, broken out in a cold sweat from the dilemma he found himself caught in.
Someone is right up against my back, he thought to himself, struggling to lay still and pretend to still be asleep. And whoever it is, they're moving!
There were a number of ways that this could go pear-shaped. Whoever it was who had sleep-walked into his room—for no one would deliberately come cuddle up to a loser like himself, of course—could wake up, realize where they were, and if it were Motoko or Naru, put him in a world of pain. Shinobu, Kitsune, or Kaolla would undoubtedly draw attention, which would bring on the other way that things could go so horribly bad: Naru or Motoko catching someone in his bed.
Trapped in place, unable to fall back to sleep due to the anxiety coursing through him, Keitaro's mind wandered down the possibilities of who his unkown bedmate might be. Could it...could it be Naru? he dared to hope, his heart fluttering despite the danger. She always gives me such a hard time by day. Could she be sneaking into my bed at night? But I'm her apartment manager!
His sense of propriety was at war with his desire and steadily-growing feelings for his fellow Tokyo University hopeful, and though he gritted his teeth and struggled to control himself, it was a war that his propriety was losing. The warmth of another person and the near-aggression with which she cuddled against him were not helping matters at all.
Inevitably, his will crumbled, and he chose to take the bold route and whatever consequences or benefits would come of it. He shoved himself up into a half-crouch, throwing the covers back in what, in his mind, was a suitably dramatic fashion. "Narusegawa, wake u—"
Even in the darkness, even without his glasses, he could tell right away that his erstwhile bed warmer was not the brunette with which he was so enamored. Instead, sleeping peacefully on her side, her normally-tied blonde hair fanning around her head, was the young foreigner Kaolla.
The realization melded with his brain trying desperately to reign in his amorous urges, leaving him unmoving for several long moments as he tried to come up with his next course of action. Perhaps he could simply return to sleep and let the sleep-walking girl harmlessly sleep with him. Before he could make a decision, however, Kaolla turned to lay on her back, her arms reaching up to enfold the source of warmth that was his body. She was a cuddlebug, it seemed...
And then her grip tightened, and he felt his spine pop under the strength of the girl's embrace. Unable to help himself, he let out a loud shriek of pain, followed immediately by pleas for mercy. "Let me go! You're breaking my back! Narusegawa, help me, please!"
Were he in a less painful predicament, calling Naru for aid would have been the last thing he would have willfully decided on doing. Well, second last, perhaps, for he certainly would have called on her before he would Motoko, and both for the same reason: the likelihood that they would have instantly assumed the worst of him was an absolute certainty.
Unfortunately for him, his pleas were answered. The plank of wood covering the hole in his ceiling rattled as it was dragged away, allowing Naru to lean down and investigate the commotion coming from Keitaro's room, one hand holding her glasses so they wouldn't fall off. Of course, what she saw nearly caused them to fall off her face anyway: the sight of the kanrinin looming over Kaolla, the young girl's arms around him, and him bent nearly double as he looked up toward Naru in what her sleep-addled mind made out to be quite the unsavory embrace.
"Why, you little pig!" Naru snarled, pulling herself bodily through the broken ceiling and twisting in midfall, aiming a kick to Keitaro's back that promptly sent him tumbling out of the futon. Not finished there, the brunette hauled Keitaro up off the ground by his shirt lapels, shaking him vigorously as she lectured, "What do you think you're doing!? She's only in junior high!"
Leaning her head to look past him at the sleeping girl, Naru continued, "I think you'd better come with me, Su-chan, before his stupidity and sleaziness starts to rub off on you."
"Oh, come on, that's not how it works!" Keitaro protested, more at the slight than at the entire misunderstanding.
Still seemingly deep asleep, Kaolla sat up and embraced both of them, trapping the two unfortunate students in another bone-breaking hug. The painful cries of both Keitaro and Naru broke the quiet of the night, awakening the other tenants and drawing them inexorably to the scene of disaster.
Scant moments later, the hall light flicked on just before Kitsune flung open the doors with Shinobu right behind her. Inside, the thoroughly-crushed Naru lay dazed at the bottom of the pile, with Keitaro draped across her and Kaolla laying—still asleep—across Naru's legs and Keitaro's back, her arms still wrapped around both of them.
Kitsune grinned wickedly and let out a wolf whistle. "Ooh, Keitaro, you stud, you!"
On her left, Shinobu looked on at the scene in horror, both hands up and covering her mouth. "Oh no... Not just Urashima-senpai and Narusegawa-senpai, but Kaolla-san, too?"
Seno staggered toward the group, squinting against the bright hallway light and smothering a yawn with one hand. "Nnn...the hell's going on...?" he murmured, voice rough from drowsiness. He came up on Shinobu's left side, peered into Keitaro's room, then promptly and silently pinched himself to make sure he was, indeed, awake.
Naru, having recovered from her unplanned spinal realignment, looked up at their audience and shook her head vigorously. "No, it's not like that!" she protested. "I can explain!"
She would not get the chance, however. A series of sounds that chilled the blood of both men reached them: running feet, the smooth hiss of drawn steel, and a familiar voice shouting, "Urashima!"
Motoko charged down the hall in a full sprint, her sword held back in a striking pose. Murder in her eyes, she announced, "What poisonous gall to prey on a junior high girl!"
Unarmed though he was, Seno attempted to intercept her, to pull her off course from his friend. But he had never been an early riser, and the swordswoman easily brushed him aside with her free hand, sending him sprawling into the doorjamb. But she had to slow down lest she trip over him, and that brief delay bought Keitaro time to move.
As her sword descended toward him, the kanrinin had already thrown himself back, tumbling into a heap several feet away. The sharpened edge of Motoko's blade cut a furrow in the futon, but that was all it did; with Naru and Kaolla in such close proximity, she had not dared imbue the strike with her ki.
Casually sheathing her sword again, Motoko glared at the heap of a man for a moment, then shifted her gaze. "It seems I arrived not a moment too soon. Are you alright, Naru-sempai? Su?"
Keenly aware of the sliced fabric of Keitaro's futon scarcely inches away from her, Naru nervously answered, "Y-yeah, I'm fine..."
Kaolla, however, still had not seemed to wake up in all this time, curled halfway up now that both her cuddling partners were out of proximity. "Nii-sama..." she murmured in her sleep. "...love you..."
"Brother...?" Kitsune repeated, confused.
"Who could that be?" Shinobu wondered aloud.
May 4, 2006
City Streets, Hinata City, Japan
0036 hours, local time
As things returned to normal in the Hinata-Sou and the occupants returned to their individual rooms to sleep, not all was so quiet in the sleepy town. Striding down the road toward the Hinata apartments with nary a care in the world, would-be paramour Kentaro Sakata cradled a bouquet of roses in his hands.
Almost as though explaining to an unseen audience, he casually spoke aloud, "When a man comes bearing flowers and leaves them on the windowsill of his beloved, her heart can't help but be touched by his kind and loving gesture."
Just then, he noticed a tune being carried on the wind. Stopping, he looked around for its source, his gaze tracking up to the third-floor stairs of an apartment complex he was passing. There, seated on the edge of the railing, was a dark-skinned woman in what seemed to be Middle Eastern garb, a silken hood covering her head and most of her face. Her flute was the source of the music Kentaro had heard, the tune equal parts enchanting and haunting as she played under the light of the red moon.
His previous task all but forgotten, Kentaro gazed up at the foreign beauty with dazed eyes, clutching the bouquet to himself in lieu of the beautiful woman he would much rather be embracing. "How mistifying..." he uttered dreamily. Striding forward confidently, he offered up the bouquet toward her. "Excuse me, miss, would you honor me by accepting these flowers?"
Her song ending abruptly, the woman laid her flute in her lap and peered down at the brazen man. "Flowers?" she asked, her strangely-familiar accent rich in her voice. "Who the hell do you think you are?"
As he pondered over that brusque dismissal, Kentaro remained unaware of the danger he was in until a shadow loomed over him, accompanied by the guttural roar of a massive reptilian creature. His screams echoed across the quiet city, the woman above watching imperiously without lifting a single finger to help him.
Hinata Apartments
0726 hours, local time
"Look, I'm telling you that I had nothing to do with Su-chan being in my bed!" Keitaro proclaimed at breakfast the next morning. "She just showed up on her own!"
As per usual, the girls didn't believe his innocence. Even Shinobu, who displayed her annoyance with Keitaro by having served him a smaller portion size than the others.
Arms crossed, her meal half-eaten in front of her, Motoko glared at the apartment manager. Beside her, Naru ate her breakfast angrily, pointedly not even looking at Keitaro. "Surely, you swindled her into your bed," the swordswoman accused. She paid no heed to the faint cracking sound—akin to a hammer striking a blade—that came from where Seno's sword leaned against a corner nearby. Instead, she continued, "When Su goes to sleep with me, she never moves throughout the night. Out like a light, as they say."
Keitaro, who had been taking the opportunity to try and eat his comically-undersized smoked fish, was blindsided by the appearance of Kaolla, who leapt onto his shoulders for a brief moment as she called out, "Good morning!" Then she casually leap-frogged over him to land in the empty seat between him and Seno, promptly digging into her breakfast.
"What do you think you're doing, Su-chan!?" Keitaro squawked in surprise.
Unperturbed by the dynamic arrival, Seno set down his tea cup and made a counterclockwise circle with a finger. "Wait, rewind," he said, looking across the table at Motoko. "You say Kaolla-san sleeps with you?"
"Most nights," the raven-haired girl answered with a nod. "She has problems sleeping alone, and a peculiar habit of unexpected strength in her embrace."
Kaolla nodded emphatically. "Motoko's the only one who can survive my cuddles!" she gleefully announced.
Seno laughed. "Well, that makes sense. She is the strongest one here, after all."
Unsure of how to answer that unabashed praise, Motoko turned her attention down to her meal, struggling to fight down the heat she could feel in her face. Into the lull in the conversation, Shinobu asked, "How are you feeling this morning, Kaolla-san?"
The blonde foreigner lifted a hand to rest her chin on it. "I don't really know what happened last night," she said, though it was clear in her voice that that lack of knowledge didn't really bother her. "I just know that when I woke up, I had been sleeping next to Keitaro." She leaned forward excitedly, proudly proclaiming, "I guess I like him more than I thought!"
Seno let out an amused sound while Keitaro jumped out of his seat, backing away from Kaolla with panic written clear across his face. At the other end of the table, Naru rolled her eyes. "You can't take what she says seriously."
In the window behind her, Kentaro dragged himself up to lean into the window, looking as disheveled as if he'd crawled from the city up the hill without using the stairs along the way. "Well, that would be easy for you to say," he told Naru, "but not everyone's like you and me. It's the first time in his life a girl has said she likes him."
Seno squinted at the unwelcome breakfast guest. "Okay, one, creepy. Two, rude."
Shifting his gaze from Naru to the swordsman, Kentaro opened his mouth to retort, only for his eyes to fall on Kaolla. The foreigner, obliviously enjoying a banana with her food, didn't even glance at him, but nonetheless the young man immediately began to panic at the sight of the girl, who looked almost just like the woman he'd met the previous night!
Keitaro, doing a remarkable job at ignoring the usual barbs from his romantic rival, asked Kaolla, "Last night, I heard you talking in your sleep about a big brother?"
"Oh yes, that's true!" Kaolla answered happily. "I do have two older siblings, a brother and a sister."
Naru smiled at the younger girl. "Oh, does your brother look like Keitaro or remind you of him?"
As she began to turn her attention to Naru, Kentaro promptly dropped out of sight so she wouldn't notice him. Oblivious as ever, the foreigner simply answered Naru, "No, Keitaro doesn't look a thing like him."
Needless to say, this answer perplexed the other tenants. "Then...what's the connection—" Keitaro began, only to be interrupted when he caught Kaolla's foot in the face as the foreigner spun around and leapt out of her chair. On her other side, Seno avoided a similar fate by the slimmest of margins.
"I'm off to school!" Kaolla proclaimed, sprinting for the door. "'I'm late! I'm late!' Isn't that what you say in Japan?"
"Wait for me!" Shinobu called after the girl, trying in vain to catch up or get her to slow down.
Back in the kitchen, Kentaro pulled himself back into view, slid the window open, and pointed dramatically in the direction Kaolla had gone. "That woman is a crazy magical girl!" he exclaimed, pulling himself up and in through the window.
On Naru's other side, the man's words caused Motoko to tense up. No one noticed the swordswoman's reaction, distracted as they were by Kentaro's antics.
"Narusegawa, you need to leave this place, right now!" the odd man proclaimed, grabbing her by the arm and starting to pull her out of her chair.
Across the table, Seno kipped his chair up on its back legs to lean and reach for his sword. "Alright, that's enough bullshit this chapter."
The brunette needed no help, however, promptly sucker-punching Kentaro in the face with her other hand. Being her off-hand, and from a poor position, it lacked the physics-defying launching power of her usual hits, instead just sending Kentaro sprawling against the wall.
"Just what the heck are you doing?" Keitaro asked.
"I'm only trying to help!" the other man complained, reaching tentatively for his nose to make sure it wasn't broken.
Kitsune squinted at Seno from the far corner of the table. "Bold of you to assume it ain't gonna get worse."
"Don't deny a man his hopes."
Hinata Tea House, Hinata City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
0742 hours, local time
With the two youngest residents off to school, and Motoko and Seno off for their morning practice, that left Keitaro, Naru, and Kitsune to meet up with Kentaro down the hill at the tea shop. Haruka, the morning rush being over, leaned against a table nearby so she could listen in while she balanced her books.
"I can't believe you're going around accusing Su-chan of terrorizing the neighborhood at night," Keitaro remarked as his erstwhile rival finished his tale of his encounter the previous night.
"But I'm telling the truth!" Kentaro argued, shoving his left arm into the center of the table and pulling back the sleeve to reveal a nasty abrasion on his outer forearm. "Just look at this wound!"
The trio of residents silently looked over the rather-convincing injury, recalling the tale he'd told of nearly being eaten by an albino crocodilian while this mystery woman looked on. She had, according to his tale, been wholly unmoved by his pleas for help. How he had managed to escape was still a mystery.
Privately, Naru looked at the gash on his arm and thought it looked like the sort of injury one got by scraping themselves against a chain link fence.
"There was no mistaking those exotic Indian features," Kentaro proclaimed with all the finality of a lawyer making closing arguments.
"Actually, Su-chan isn't from India," Naru said offhand.
"Oh?" Keitaro asked, turning toward the brunette. "Do you know where she is from?"
Across the table, Kitsune lifted a finger. "No one actually knows," she answered. "She doesn't really talk about it."
"Huh," the manager mused. "I wonder if—"
Incensed by this random digression, Kentaro clenched both hands into fists. "Hey! Are you guys listening to me? I'm not making this stuff up. There have been repeated sightings of this mysterious woman by many others."
Keitaro shook his head. "Whoever it is, it's not Su-chan."
"Then who is it, smart guy?" Kentaro demanded. He shook his head a moment, then pressed on, "Don't you think it's strange for a young girl like her to be away from her family, studying all alone in a foreign country? If anything, I bet she's hiding some kind of dark past."
Keitaro was silent for several moments, the memory of a sleeping Kaolla calling for her brother flashing in his mind's eye. There was absolutely no way that someone so innocent could be hiding a dark past.
His resolve hardened, he pushed himself up to his feet and peered down at the other man. "Fine, then. I'll find out who this mystery woman is and prove Su-chan's innocence."
Sitting off to the side with her legs crossed, chin resting in her palm, Haruka calmly remarked, "Su may be young, but even someone as young as her may have their own problems. If that's the case, then she's been able to leave all that behind and live a good life here." The older woman paused to consider the cigarette held in her other hand, but refrained from lighting it. "Don't you think you should just let her be?"
Keitaro was not willing to be cowed in this matter, even in the face of his aunt's disapproval. "In order to let her keep living that good life here, we have to clear up any of these suspicions going around about her."
Facing Haruka as he was, Keitaro missed the look of surprise on Naru's face at the spine he was demonstrating, and the fact that he was willing to go out of his way to solve a problem Kaolla didn't even know she had. Haruka, however, did see this, but chose to keep it to herself, along with her personal approval of Keitaro's dedication. All she said was, "You're the kanrinin. Do what you think is in everyone's best interests."
Market Streets, Hinata City
0810 hours, local time
The shopkeeper presented an unknown currency: a three-eyed elephant wearing a red cap, the numerical denomination in the corners indicating that the bill was valued at 1000 of whatever currency it happened to be. It was certainly neither Japanese or American, leaving Keitaro and Naru with no clue of its country of origin.
"Yes, there was a strange foreign woman who came into my shop yesterday," he answered their query. "She bought all of the yatsuhashi I had for sale and paid me with this."
At another shop, Keitaro presented the foreign currency to another shopkeeper. The old man gave it an evaluative eye as he took a long drag from his kiseru pipe. "Mmm, I had been about to call out to her to get her to come back..."
"And there was an unusual flash of lightning?" Naru repeated, almost to herself. She hadn't remembered a thunderstorm the previous day, but these old shopkeeps were not known to lie or be mistaken.
The old man nodded. "Right about the time I heard some strange flute music. She was already walking away, so it might have been her. I'm not sure."
At the third of the three main shops run by the old folks, Keitaro showed a sketch he had made of Kaolla, one that was practically photorealistic for the level of detail it contained. "This does look like her somewhat, but it's not the same girl," the man said. "Very close, though."
With no positive leads, and only more odd rumors to go off of, Keitaro and Naru turned to leave. As they left, the old man lifted his gaze from the sketch and stared off into the middle distance. "It was like magic," he murmured, practically to himself. "Like waking from a dream."
Keitaro paused to look back, but the man had already gone back inside his shop, dusting shelves while muttering under his breath.
Hinata Apartments
1622 hours, local time
With the day's schooling having come to an end, Kaolla sprinted back home, leaving Shinobu far back in the dust. The blonde slid open the front door and kicked her shoes off with a practiced ease, forgoing house slippers as usual as she called out to no one, "Hey, I'm back!"
Darting across the common room, she grabbed hold of the stair railing and started up, shifting her voice to a higher pitch as she answered herself, "Welcome home, dear!"
She carried on that conversation with herself, her voice fading as she ascended the stairs. Unbeknownst to her, Keitaro and Naru had been present the whole time, the pair revealing themselves as they stepped out from underneath the stairwell.
"You know, it's not like she committed any major crimes," Naru remarked. "Sure, she used a bit of funny money and controlled the weather a bit. It's not like that's a big deal."
Not quite catching on to the fact that it very much was a big deal for a normal person to manipulate the weather, Keitaro simply nodded in agreement and added, "And it's a bonus when she beats up the town pervert."
As if summoned directly by any mention of him, regardless of positive or negative, Kentaro lifted himself up from behind one of the couches, glaring at the two Todai hopefuls. "Hey, what's that supposed to mean!?" he demanded.
Still deep in their efforts to get to the bottom of the mystery woman and how Kaolla was related to her, Keitaro and Naru continued to observe her throughout the afternoon. They watched her run around the grounds eating bananas, running up the laundry roof and sliding back down, play with a veritable legion of stuffed toys, seemingly hold a conversation with Tama, and even find her Mecha-Tama creation after it blasted Keitaro with a high-energy laser.
And yet, every last one of those things were just typical Kaolla behavior, seeming not at all out of order for the energetic foreign girl.
Finally, as night fell, they decided to call their investigation for that day. While Naru retired to her room, Keitaro decided to take a walk around the grounds before turning in for the evening.
"All our investigations didn't turn up anything about this strange woman," he murmured aloud to himself, tucking his hands in his pockets as the wind began to pick up. "Kentaro has to be mistaken."
The night brightened slightly, and he looked up to see the clouds parting to reveal the full moon, hanging low and strangely crimson in the night sky.
"Huh, don't see a red moon very often."
Before he'd even finished speaking, musical notes drew his attention to the highest roof of the apartments. Seated at the peak of the roof, clad in red and green Indian-seeming attire, a woman who looked almost identical to Kaolla plucked at a sitar in her lap. Keitaro stared up at her, mesmerized, and as she seemed to sense his presence, she stood and gazed down at him, the instrument cradled gently in her arms.
"Nii-sama, I've been waiting for you," she told him in a gentle tone, her soft words carried on the breeze. She sounded like Kaolla, but he'd never heard her speak in such a soft tone before.
Determined to get his answers, Keitaro didn't wait to answer, instead darting up the alley between buildings and making his way up to the roof of the laundry building. It took him several minutes to complete the climb, and by the time he'd made it up, the woman was no longer on the roof. Unnoticed by him, the clouds had once more drifted across the moon, obscuring its light from sight.
Naru, having heard Keitaro running and seen his silhouette on the roof, opened her side door and called out, "Hey, what's with all the ruckus? What are you doing up there?"
"Oh, I just saw—" he began, shifting to face her. Unfortunately, his sock-clad feet slipped on the roof tile, and he tumbled straight off the roof and into her room. She didn't quite react fast enough to get out of the way, the weight and momentum of Keitaro's body sending them both crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
Recovering more quickly, Naru groaned as she pulled herself up, then growled and reached out to seize the kanrinin by his shirt. "Keitaro, you idiot!" she snarled, winding up her other hand for one of her infamous strikes.
Before she could clean his clock, however, he reached out to grab her wrist in both hands. "Wait, Narusegawa, come with me!"
Taken off guard by the oddness of his not immediately cowering in response to her threats of imminent violence, she let him pull her out of her own room and down the hall to Kaolla's room. As the door slid to the side, Keitaro paused momentarily in place, stunned by the utter weirdness of seeing the room filled wall-to-wall with a section of jungle as though it had been magically transplanted there.
"This room never fails to amaze me," he said quietly, shaking his head once as he took it all in.
"Oh, stop it," Naru whispered back, glaring over at him. "Su-chan isn't that weird."
Peering into the room, Naru let out a surprised noise when she noticed Kaolla within, sleeping draped over a thick tree branch the way that a large cat would.
The pair approached the sleeping girl, noting that she was still in her school uniform. Apparently, she'd tired herself out to the point that she'd gone straight to sleep without bothering to change. As they drew near, Keitaro called out, "Su-chan?"
Stirring from her slumber, the foreigner lifted her head slightly and squinted, trying to make out who was in her room. "Hey, Keitaro," she greeted sleepily. "Here for a midnight fling? I don't mind, so long as it's you."
Both older residents were taken aback by that casual remark, and Keitaro could practically feel the heat of Naru's glare on his back. "W-what are you saying!? Are you nuts?"
"By the way, are flings tasty?" Kaolla asked, her tone making it questionable whether she'd even heard him in her sleepy state.
Briefly floored by the absurdity of Kaolla not even seeming to know what she was asking, Keitaro shook off the shock and asked, "Nevermind that, Su-chan. Were you up on the roof just now?"
"On the roof?" She shook her head slowly, then laid her head back down on the tree branch. "No, that's silly. I've been in my room all this time. Last thing I remember was looking out at the red moon, but it started to make me sleepy."
Keitaro stepped back and lifted a hand to his chin in thought. "I see... Come to think of it, that woman seemed to be older and taller..."
The rustling of fabric drew his attention to the ground, where he found Tama gripping a length of green fabric in its mouth and scooting away. "Huh, what've you got there, Tama-chan?" Picking up the turtle and fabric both, he set Tama on his shoulder and held up the fabric. "What's this, Su-chan?"
"Ah, that's mine!" she exclaimed, yanking it from Keitaro's hands and promptly folding it roughly before laying down on it. "It's my precious wedding gown," she explained, closing her eyes and humming happily. "My older sister gave it to me."
Sensing that she was drifting back to sleep, Keitaro and Naru decided to leave her in peace, leaving her room and sliding the door shut behind them. Once outside, Tama hopped off from Keitaro's shoulder and glided away, while Naru looked toward him with concern. "Hey, how much longer are you planning to keep chasing Su-chan around like this?" she asked.
Heaving a mighty sigh, Keitaro stared off through the sliding window panels that closed off the hallway for the night. "When she called out for her brother in her sleep last night, Su-chan sounded so lonely... I want to understand why and help her, so I'm going to keep at it. At least for a little while longer..."
May 5, 2006
Community College Campus, Hinata City, Japan
1129 hours, local time
"Here," Haitani said, holding out the strange bill toward Keitaro. "I asked around like you wanted, but nobody knew where this currency comes from."
"Oh well," Keitaro said as he folded it once and tucked it into his pocket. "Thanks for trying, anyway."
"No problem, man. Oh, by the way, Shirai wanted to ask you something." At the sound of a commotion, Keitaro's taller friend looked back over his shoulder. "Ah, here he comes now."
Loaded down with a backpack and twin pairs of shopping bags, but not seeming at all encumbered by what he was carrying, Shirai sprinted up to Keitaro and leaned way into his personal space. "Keitaro, I heard that the Hinata-sou is in an uproar because of some mysterious woman that keeps popping up all over the place!"
Holding both hands up in a marginally successful attempt to ward off his friend, Keitaro murmured, "Well, it's not really that big a deal..."
"Listen man, I gotta tell you something about that Su girl you got living there," the shorter man said, setting down his bags and rooting around in them. After a moment, he produced a cheap cosplay magic wand and did a little flourish before pointing the wand at Keitaro. "She's a magical girl!"
The only response Keitaro could muster was a single, flat, "What."
"Some magical girls come from other worlds and already possess magic powers," Shirai explained, pointing to a drawn image of a young girl in black riding on a broom in the night sky with a black cat. "While others were normal girls who got their powers from a magic world and became magical girls." Here he gestured to a drawing of a normally-dressed young girl holding up a magic wand in front of an old witch, with the implication clear that the girl had received the wand—and magic powers—from said witch.
He then directed his friends' attention to a drawing of that girl holding the wand aloft, with magic energy swirling around her, with an arrow next to her pointing to an older version of said girl dressed in a business suit. "And then they can use these powers to transform themselves into an adult form!" he finished, shaking the white board that he had quickly drawn those pictures on. Quite impressively so, given how little time he'd had to do so.
Unfortunately for him, neither Keitaro nor Haitani were particularly impressed, the two laying back on the grassy hill while they'd been forced to endure their more excitable friend's explanation. "So you get it, right?" he continued, either oblivious or uncaring that they were barely listening to him. "This mystery woman that everyone's been seeing around town is Su-chan turned into her adult form!"
And to prove his wild theory, the trio of ne'er-do-wells sought out the foreigner to prove that there was more to her than met the eye. They first caught up to her while she was walking home from school with Shinobu. The blonde finished the banana she was eating and then, seemingly out of sheer boredom, jumped straight up onto the roof of the building next to them and began to hop from rooftop to rooftop across the narrow alley.
"See! Look at how nimble she is!" Shirai proclaimed.
"Yeah, that's how she's always been," Keitaro promptly responded, completely deadpan.
After a few minutes, Kaolla seemed to tire of her impromptu gymnastics and returned to street level, where Shinobu met up with her at a bakery shop. The two girls agreed to buy some snacks, but while Shinobu only picked up a pair of baked goods, Kaolla came away with an entire armful that she casually scarfed down as though feeding them into a vacuum cleaner.
Down the street, Haitani stroked his chin in thought. "That is an absurdly large appetite for someone of her size and age," he observed.
Once again, Keitaro saw nothing unusual about it. "No, that's pretty normal for her. And she'll still be hungry for dinner."
As the girls finally turned away from the bakery and resumed their path, Tama glided down to land on Kaolla's shoulder, chirping away with her usual assortment of sounds. As was typical of Kaolla's nature, the foreigner pretended to converse with the flying turtle.
Shirai, naturally, took this at face value and pointed overenthusiastically while practically crushing his friends to the ground. "Look, look, look! She's talking to an animal! That's like, bare basics of being a magical girl!" Scowling in irritation, he grabbed Keitaro's head in one hand and shook him vigorously, heedless of the scene they were causing. "Go ahead and try to explain that one away! Oh wait, you can't, because there is no other explanation other than I'm right!"
Before Keitaro could give an answer, Kaolla dropped down from the rooftop beside them, landing on his shoulders with uncanny accuracy and locking her legs around his neck. "Boo!" she exclaimed, maintaining her position with ease as he stumbled around before finally managing to regain his balance.
"Wow, she's the real deal! This is great!" Shirai exclaimed, having produced a camera from one of his many bags and using it to snap pictures from several angles.
Ignoring that distraction, Kaolla shifted herself so that she was hanging off of Keitaro's side like a chimpanzee, gleefully proclaiming, "I knew you were following me, Keitaro! You don't need to act like a stalker, you know. I'll play with you whenever you want!"
"W-well, it's not really anything like that," he tried to explain. "You see—"
Not bothering to listen, the foreign girl proceeded to rub her cheek against Keitaro's in the same way that a cat would, while remarking, "Ooh, Keitaro, your hair smells so nice and your cheeks are so smooth!"
In the next heartbeat, he found himself crashed against a wall on the side of the street. When he came to, he was surrounded by Haitani, Shirai, Shinobu, and Kaolla, with Naru looming over him and making it abundantly clear how he'd gotten to where he was.
"What do you think you're doing?" the brunette demanded, fists posted on her hips. "Hitting on a junior high girl in public? What's wrong with you?"
Lifting her arms up to let her school bag dangle behind her head, Kaolla looked incredibly smug as she quipped at the older girl, "Ohhh, I see now. Naru's already staked her claim on him, I see."
The speed with which Naru whirled on the foreign girl was breathtaking. Just as fast was the flash of color beginning to creep into her cheeks. "What are you talking about!? I am not!"
Giggling to herself, Kaolla promptly skipped away down the street, calling back behind her, "Naru's red as a tomato! Made ya blush!"
"Wha— I am not!" Naru argued, taking off after the blonde just as Keitaro was standing back up. "Get back here!"
Without any prompting, Keitaro likewise took off after the two of them. Unfortunately, Kaolla took it as a game and sped up to a full-on sprint, leaving the older two in her dust. Keitaro, never the most athletic individual, soon fell behind even further.
Just as he made his way onto the Yukemori Bridge, the two girls disappearing from his sight off the other end, a strange flute melody began to echo from the alleyways. He followed the music, feeling that it would lead him toward the mischievous foreigner.
It seemed that his intuition was correct. As he turned one corner, he found a tall woman with silver hair pulled up into a ponytail, wearing the same type of crop top and long skirt that he had seen on the mystery woman the previous night. The color was different, but...
"Su-chan?" he tentatively called out. "Is that you?"
The woman turned to face him, the music coming to a halt as she lowered her flute. "Who are..." she began, trailing off as she got a good look at him. Suddenly, she growled, "It's you. Shiro, attack!"
Barely had she pointed in his direction than an enormous albino alligator leapt around the corner, letting out a bellowing roar before it charged down the alley toward him.
Keitaro was often called a fool by his friends and the girls at the Hinata alike, but he was not fool enough to hang around when a trained attack animal was coming his way. Especially not of a species that was so evolutionarily perfect that it had barely changed since the time of the dinosaurs.
"Nope! Nope! Nope!" he yelled, spinning on his heel and sprinting toward the mouth of the alley.
Unfortunately for him, a charging alligator in a straight line can easily outpace a human, and he had no time to escape before it caught up to him.
Room 204, Hinata Apartments
1815 hours, local time
Luckily for Keitaro, his screams had drawn Naru's attention, and by the time she'd found him in that alley, he was lightly mauled but not severely injured. Certainly less so than Kentaro had been. She and Kaolla had gotten him up and hauled him back to the Hinata so that Naru could treat his injuries in his own room. The worst of it seemed to be a few scrapes and bruises.
"She definitely fit the 'magical girl' stereotype that Shirai was talking about," he mused as Naru finished putting away the medical supplies and closing the first aid kit.
Behind them, Kaolla finished washing her hands and got up to head off and find some more fun, wandering in front of Seno standing in the doorframe as she did.
"I can't believe I'm hearing this," Naru sighed, shaking her head.
"Yeah, my guy, Shirai really is not the most reliable dude to be getting info from," Seno agreed. "Man reads way too much manga for his own good."
"That's rich coming from you," both Keitaro and Naru deadpanned at the exact same time.
The swordsman smirked. "Aww, look at that, cute you two agreeing on something." He flicked his left hand in a brushing off motion as the two blushed and promptly looked away from each other. "Setting aside that there's no such thing as magic, this sounds like some crazy lady with an attack gator."
"Well, if you guys don't believe me, I'll just have to watch over Su-chan myself," Keitaro stubbornly stated.
Naturally, this was not taken well by either of them. "Are you kidding me?" Naru practically shouted. "And leave her alone with you? You're out of your mind!"
"Yeah, absolute fu—" He quickly clamped a hand over his mouth. "Whoops, better not let that F-bomb go. We're getting away with a T rating for this series, don't wanna kick it up to M."
Keitaro raised an eyebrow at his friend. "What? I thought we got them per episode, not for the whole work?"
"I dunno the exact rules," Seno shrugged, shaking his head lightly. "I'd rather play it safe. Anyway, Naru's right. There's a nutjob out there who is deliberately siccing her attack gator on you, you are not getting left alone until that lady's behind bars."
Before Keitaro could present an argument, Kaolla slid back over to stand between them, her grinning face making it apparent she'd found some more trouble to cause. "Hey, what's this!" she proclaimed, no question at all apparent in her voice as she pulled an adult pin-up magazine from behind her back and showed it off. "Keitaro's a pervert!"
Panicking at his private material being showed off, terrified that Naru might suddenly knock him into next week, he cried out, "Give me that!" and lunged at Kaolla. Alas, having seen that exact move coming, Kaolla swiftly retreated, causing him to awkwardly crash onto his face.
As he tried to climb to his feet, he caught a pillow to the face, knocking him over onto his back. Kaolla, standing by the open closet door she'd pilfered both the magazine and pillow from, was standing there armed with two more pillows, waiting to fire another round.
Seno and Naru, meanwhile, simply watched from opposite sidelines, neither seeing any real harm in this game Kaolla was playing. Naru wasn't even bothered by the pin-up magazine; she expected that Keitaro had such a thing stashed away.
As the evening wore on, daylight fading into night, the moon began to rise in an ominous blood red. Within the Hinata, Naru and Keitaro had finally gotten Kaolla to calm down some, the trio now sitting around the table in Keitaro's room with drinks and snacks.
"Hey, Keitaro, is it true you've never had any girls like you at all?" the foreigner asked. For Kaolla, who never really meant anything maliciously, it was an innocent enough question, but one that had Keitaro hammering his head against the table in misery.
"Boy is that something to walk back in on hearing," Seno laughed as he rejoined the group, leaning his sword against the table as he sat down and plucked a cookie off the plate in the middle.
"Ooh, but is it true?" Kaolla asked, turning her cheeky grin on the swordsman.
Shaking his head, Seno held the back of his hand to his mouth so he wouldn't spray crumbs everywhere as he answered, "Sorry, Kaolla-san, bro code forbids me from answering that question."
"Thank you, Seno," Keitaro mumbled, his voice muffled by the table.
Giggling in amusement, Kaolla flopped sideways to drape herself onto Keitaro's back, embracing him as she playfully said, "Don't worry, Keitaro, I can be your girlfriend!"
Seno rolled his eyes at Kaolla's antics and shifted sideways, stretching his legs out across the floor while leaning sideways on the table. Naru, however, was not so amused, crossing her arms and glaring at her fellow Todai aspirant. "Oh, seriously," she grumbled. "Enough already. Knock it off, Keitaro."
The other three were taken aback by the sudden hostility, but surprisingly, Keitaro chose to stand up for himself without any prompting. Turning up his nose, he retorted, "W-well, who are you to tell me what I can or can't do?" In a further effort to seem like he wasn't bothered, he turned his attention to Seno and asked, "You went off to talk to Motoko-chan, right? Did you two come up with a game plan?"
Pausing to look from Keitaro to Naru and back again, and let his gaze linger each time, the younger man let out a long exhale. "Draggin' me into the middle of this crap..." he muttered under his breath, then spoke up, "Yeah, she agrees that this whole thing is bad news. She's out patrolling the grounds for a while, then we're gonna switch and I'll go patrol while she sits in."
Naru didn't take very long to get over the shock of being snubbed by Keitaro, and anger was swift to rise in its place. To her credit, she didn't leap straight to violence. Instead, she silently pushed herself up to her feet and and walked out of the room.
Keitaro watched her leave with a shocked face, and Seno only let his gaze trail after her until he realized that his friend was still rooted to the spot. Turning his head, he raised his eyebrow in Keitaro's direction, and when the kanrinin still didn't take the hint, the swordsman silently jerked his thumb in the direction that the older woman had left.
Finally catching on, Keitaro promptly excused himself and stepped out, his voice calling "Narusegawa, wait!" trailing off into the night.
Seno shook his head. "Those two, I swear..." His hand absently reached across the table, but upon coming up empty he looked down and realized, "Ah, left my drink downstairs." Climbing up to his feet, he collected his sword and looked over to Kaolla. "Hold down the fort while I'm gone. Don't set nothing on fire."
For her part, Kaolla simply giggled at her enjoyment of the shenanigans taking place that evening. As she leaned forward to pluck another snack, she caught sight of the full moon rising behind the trees, its crimson color seeming to mesmerize the young girl.
It was only a minute or so before Keitaro returned to his room, having been fully snubbed in return by Naru. To his surprise, the room was completely empty, with no sign of either his friend or the foreign girl.
"Hey, you hear that music?" Seno asked, coming back down the hall with a bottled strawberry drink in hand.
Startled by the sudden return of his friend, Keitaro blinked at the question, then lifted his head to hear better as the sound of sitar music reached him. "Su-chan..." he mused, before realizing that he'd heard this music before! "It's that woman! Come on, Seno!"
Without waiting, Keitaro took off running down the hall toward the stairs. Behind him, Seno looked down at the drink he'd fetched with genuine sorrow on his face, then sighed, set it down on a bookshelf inside Keitaro's room, and turned to follow after his friend.
By the time Seno caught up, Keitaro was struggling to climb up onto the roof unaided. "Oh, will you quit being a dumbass," the swordsman groused, grabbing hold of Keitaro's flailing feet and shoving his friend up and onto the roof.
"Ah, thanks," Keitaro called back, turning around and catching the sword that Seno tossed up to him before kneeling down and grabbing Seno's hand to help haul him onto the roof as well.
Dusting his hands and reclaiming his sword, Seno looked across the roof at the woman as Keitaro walked toward her. "So, this is our mystery woman, eh?"
Keitaro nodded once, then softly called out, "Su-chan?" The woman didn't react, still playing her sitar, so he said louder, "Su-chan!"
This caught her attention, setting her instrument on the roof as she stood and turned toward them. "Nii-sama..." she said, seeming to not even notice Seno's presence. Not that he minded.
The woman swiftly walked across the roof, embracing Keitaro tightly for a moment before stepping back and looking up into his face. "Nii-sama, I've finally grown up. I prayed to the red moon back home to make me an adult."
She seemed to lose her balance for a moment, prompting Keitaro to quickly reach up and steady her by grabbing her shoulders. "Su-chan, what's the matter?"
"I've been so lonely..." she murmured in response, looking up at him with eyes shining. "Please, give me a sign that I've become an adult."
As she leaned closer, clearly moving for a kiss, Keitaro's face erupted in a blush, the man not having a clue whether he should stop her or reciprocate her feelings.
At least, he wasn't the only one unsure of what to do. Still standing at the edge of the roof, clearly forgotten by the two of them, Seno stood with his arms crossed, sword resting across his arms, a bemused look on his face. Directing his gaze away from the two of them and out through the veil of the medium, he whispered conspiratorially, "Honestly, not sure if I should break it up or let it happen. Kaolla-san is a little too young normally, but if this magic crap is real and she's all growed up, it might be good for them."
Before any decision could be made, a voice yelled out from behind him, "Kaolla, stop it! That's not our brother!"
Seno swiftly spun around, jumping back several paces to place himself bodily between the unknown voice and Keitaro as he gripped his sword by the sheath in his left hand. "Oi, Keitaro, this the lady that almost made you gator kibble?"
"This is getting out of hand..." Keitaro muttered, staring in shock at the newcomer. "Now there are two of them!"
Despite himself, Seno smirked. "Hey, leave the references to me. But I'm gonna take that as a yes." He brought his other hand down in front of him, close enough to quickly draw his sword but not quite threateningly holding it yet. "Now listen, lady. I'm gonna have to ask you to kindly leave my buddy alone."
The dark-skinned woman glared at him, a dangerous sharpness to her blue eyes. "This is not your concern, outsider. Stand aside," she commanded, her tone making it clear that she was accustomed to having her orders followed.
"We're just gonna have to find ourselves at what they call an impasse," he answered coolly, his body going eerily still but for the wavering of his fingers toward the hilt of his blade.
Just then, Naru pulled herself up onto the roof, drawn by all the commotion. "Wh-what's going on?" she asked, looking between the people on the roof. Even she could feel the rising tension of imminent combat about to break out.
Clearly hoping that Naru's arrival would serve as a distraction, the albino alligator made its appearance, leaping clear over the edge of the rooftop in an attack posture directly toward Keitaro. Seno, however, was not distracted, sliding one step to the right to position himself in the animal's path as he drew his sword. "I don't think so!" he called out, blade flashing in the moon's glow as it arced toward the alligator's lightly-armored underside.
Several flute notes preceded a sudden bolt of lightning out of the darkness, catching Seno's sword in a thunderclap and flattening the swordsman to the deck. Lowering her flute, the woman scoffed as her alligator sailed past the defeated man and clamped its jaws around Keitaro's middle, directing it with a whistle and jerk of her head to take another prodigious leap off the rooftop with the apartment manager in tow.
Overhead, the clouds began to drift across the moon again, obscuring its light from view. Kaolla wobbled in place for a moment, murmuring "Nii-sama..." before she fell onto her side and passed out. The other woman took a moment to look down at her before vanishing in a powerful leap of her own.
Now faced with a kidnapped kanrinin and two downed friends, Naru felt a panic starting to rise inside her before Seno groaned, rolling onto his back as his movement dragged his sword across the roof. "Seno-san, are you okay?"
"Gghh, I will be..." he groaned out, slowly shifting into a seated position. "Damn freak lightning... What about Kaolla-san and Keitaro?"
Naru knelt down next to the foreign girl, who had looked like an older version of herself moments ago but now seemed back to normal. But that didn't make any sense. She had to have been seeing things. "Su-chan seems okay, I think she's just sleeping," she answered the swordsman. To herself, she murmured, "So it was her... Then who was that other woman?"
By then, Motoko, Kitsune, and Shinobu had arrived at the scene, likewise drawn by all the commotion and especially the boom of thunder. Motoko looked down at the clearly-winded Seno and immediately put two and two together.
"She was here, then?" At Seno's nod, the Shinmei-ryū heiress frowned and offered out her hand to help him up. "My apologies. It appears that this woman is more skilled at infiltration than I expected."
He reached up past her hand, grabbing hold of her wrist in a firm grip that she instinctively matched, the two of them working as one to haul him up to his feet. "No worries, this place has a lot of ground for you to cover alone." Leaning down to pick up his dropped scabbard, he sheathed his sword, then slipped it through his belt over his left hip. "She made off with Keitaro, though. Shinobu-san, call the police, please. Naru-san, can you and Kitsune-san take care of Kaolla-san?"
Nodding her head, Naru waved Kitsune over to help her pick up Kaolla and bring her back inside. As they headed back inside with Shinobu hot on their heels, Motoko asked him, "What are you planning to do?"
He pressed his thumb against the golden dragon whose wings made up the hand guard on his sword. "Rescue mission, of course. Care to come with?"
Apartment Building, Hinata City
2026 hours, local time
If ever there had been any doubt in Keitaro's mind that the woman who had kidnapped him and Kaolla were linked, that doubt vanished when the woman had brought him to her apartment. Like Kaolla's room, it was as if some supernatural force had transplanted a jungle into a normal room. Not that he was paying particularly close attention to the layout at the moment, not when that alligator was crawling threateningly toward him.
"W-w-w-wait, no! I'm sorry! Please forgive me!" he begged, backing up as far as he could until his back hit a tree growing seemingly into the wall.
His arms had been tied around his body, but she hadn't bothered to bind his legs or feet. Clearly, she thought the alligator was security enough to keep him from escaping. It didn't seem intent on attacking him, though, coming to a stop a pace away from him and simply opening its mouth to growl at him.
"Down, Shiro," the woman said as she stepped up beside the alligator, never breaking eye contact with Keitaro. The alligator promptly closed its jaws and backed away, giving Keitaro just enough peace of mind to turn his attention to her as she crossed her arms over her chest. "The name's Amalla Su."
"So, that means you're related to Su-chan...?" he prompted.
"I'm Kaolla's older sister," she nodded.
"Ohhh..." he murmured, sliding down the trunk of the tree to plop down on the grassy floor. "Say, that accent... Where are you guys from?"
"We're both natives of the old Edo desert," she answered, a teasing note in her voice.
"There are no deserts near Edo!" he protested, jumping back to his feet and leaning in as though he wasn't still bound and her alligator wasn't still within striking distance. "It's not even called Edo anymore!"
"Hm? Is Edo not still the center of the country?"
Keitaro let his head droop and heaved a sigh. "It's Tokyo," he corrected. "It's been Tokyo for almost a hundred and fifty years."
"Oh, I see," Amalla mused, though he was having trouble figuring out if she genuinely hadn't known that or was just messing with him. He strongly suspected it was the latter.
"No wonder Su-chan is such a pill, she's just like her sister..." he muttered under his breath, then shook his head. "Regardless, what are you doing here, anyway?"
"Because Kaolla ran away from our homeland," Amalla answered, an obvious undercurrent of annoyance in her tone. "Technically, I'm not supposed to be here either, but I had to come." Uncrossing her arms, she reached up to tap the side of her head. "I kept hearing her cry out for help in my mind, so that's why I've come here."
Keitaro blinked several times, stuck not only on the implication that the sisters could telepathically communicate somehow, but wondering why Amalla had only just shown up now despite Kaolla having been at the Hinata for well over a year.
Before he could even organize his thoughts, Amalla grabbed him by the front of his shirt, demonstrating considerable strength by hauling him up off his feet with one hand. "And it's all your fault, little man!" she snarled.
Unbeknownst to the two of them, the entire event was being observed. Tama, pressed up against the outer window of the apartment, pushed back away from the window and flew away, heading back in the direction of the Hinata.
After a brief, uneventful flight, Tama sailed in through the open windows of Keitaro's room, where Naru and Kitsune had brought out a futon to lay the still-unconscious Kaolla in. Shinobu, her call to the town police having been made, was prepping a warm wash cloth to rest on her friend's head. Without so much as a care in the world, the tiny turtle landed on the futon by Kaolla's head and began to chirp at the foreign girl, slowly bringing her around to wakefulness.
Kitsune blinked rapidly several times, eyes fixed on the situation. "Did...did y'all know that our turtle could fly?"
Beside her, equally stunned, Naru could only shake her head. "No, that's...that's new. But that...does it sound like she's talking to Su-chan?"
Amalla's Apartment
2045 hours, local time
As it turned out, Amalla's pet alligator Shiro snored. Loudly. Keitaro wasn't sure if it was something alligators in general did, or if Shiro was just a special case. Despite the fact that it had mauled him twice—and probably Kentaro as well, though Amalla hadn't admitted to that—he couldn't help but think that the alligator was kind of cute snoozing underneath several fern fronds.
"For reasons I'll not get into, Kaolla ran away from home, from our brother and me," Amalla said, leaning against a nearby tree with her arms crossed behind her head. "After spending a year here in Japan, she wrote home of a man she met who reminded her of our brother. You."
As comfortable as he could get sitting cross-legged with his arms still bound behind him, Keitaro silently listened to Amalla's explanation. Finally, finally, he was getting the answers that he had been looking for, and learning a lot about his foreign tenant and her family at the same time.
"Kaolla's heart was torn in two," the older woman continued. "Part of her wanted to remain a child forever and keep running. But the other part of her wanted to grow up and be with our big brother. This conflict of emotions has gotten to the point that when the light of the red moon shines on her like in the desert back home, she transforms into an adult."
Briefly, the thought flickered through his mind that if Seno were here, his friend absolutely would have made a Pirates of the Caribbean reference about that whole light of the moon thing. But it was gone just as fast as he managed to put two and two together.
"Wait, so that was really you that's been causing all this chaos around town," he pointed out, completely missing the firm admission from Amalla that something supernatural, daresay even magical, was going on.
Growling in irritation, Amalla whirled on him and snapped, "Shut up! And listen close! Kaolla's body can't handle the stress of these involuntary transformations! Something drastic has to be done to put a stop to them."
That didn't at all sound like something that boded well for him. "And I'm...in the way...?" he squeaked out, somehow managing to repress a full-body shiver in fear.
A fear that was in no way assuaged by the way that she tipped her head back and crossed her arms, chuckling darkly with an incredibly smug look on her face. Then, with no warning she pounced on him, pinning him to the floor with her hands on his chest and hovering close, alarmingly so, to his face. If not for the fact that she was holding him hostage, the way that her hair draped down around her face would have set quite the romantic tone.
"Unfortunately, I can't bring myself kill someone who looks this much like our brother," she said, then gave him a seductive smile that he found far too effective for his comfort. "But if you were to become my lover and return with me to my homeland, then Kaolla won't be conflicted anymore and her transformations will come to an end."
She didn't give him even a moment to parse her wild leap of logic, Keitaro's brain short-circuiting over the whole 'become her lover' part of her statement. Leaning down even closer to him, Amalla puckered up her lips and commanded, "Now kiss me."
"Kami, she thinks just like Su-chan does!" he protested, struggling in vain to get away from the amorous Amalla. But tied up and pinned underneath her as he was, there was no way for him to escape.
But Fate smiled upon him—or perhaps cursed him, depending on one's perspective—as the unlocked door to the apartment was opened, heralding the arrival of Naru and Kaolla, the pair having been guided to Amalla's apartment by the turtle currently riding atop Kaolla's head.
The moment that Naru raised her fist, Keitaro knew exactly what was going to happen. But for once, he did not fear the oncoming Naru Punch, for it presented a way out of his current predicament. Closing his eyes, the would-be Tokyo-U hopeful braced himself for the brief pain and the flight to follow.
"He's gonna get it..." he heard Naru growl as she approached, and that was the last thing he heard before her strike sent him flying through the window and out to the streets below.
However, Amalla refused to be thwarted so easily, ignoring the intruders entirely in favor of leaping clean out the window to grab Keitaro before he hit the ground and take off into the city.
"Naru...weren't we here to rescue him?" Kaolla innocently asked.
It was then that Naru realized she'd let her instincts take control again without bothering to read the room first. Her stance slumped. "Ah sh—"
City Streets
With the knowledge that she had pursuers after her, Amalla was not of a mind to slow down at all as she sprinted through the streets, carrying Keitaro in her arms as though he weighed no more than a sack of rice. Getting to the train station that connected Hinata to the main Tokyo metro line was her goal; in the huge metro area of Tokyo, she could easily disappear long enough to arrange a ride home with her prize. As she crossed the Yukemori Bridge into the outskirts of the city, she realized that escaping would not be as easy as just making a run for it.
Standing there in the middle of the street, sword already drawn and in a ready stance, Motoko narrowed her eyes as the foreign woman appeared out of the mists. Flanking her on either side, far less intimidating but obviously equally determined, stood Shinobu with a cast-iron skillet and Kitsune with an incredibly-large empty sake bottle.
As she dropped Keitaro to the ground to free up her hands, Amalla heard the scrape of a shoe behind her, and turned partly to see Seno take up position in the middle of the street behind her. His sword was still sheathed and his arms were crossed over his chest, but her instincts warned her that he was no less ready to strike than Motoko was.
The delay was plenty of time for Naru and Kaolla to catch up, the two taking positions on either side of Seno as the swordsman glanced back at them, then smirked at Amalla. "End of the line, lady. Hand over the nerd and nobody gets hurt."
Naru nudged him with her elbow. "You're a nerd, too," she accurately pointed out.
Ignoring the two of them, Amalla focused her attention on her sister, grabbing Keitaro's head in both hands and turning him to face her younger sister. "Look closely, Kaolla. This man is not our brother!" Then, as if to further drive the truth into her sister's mind, she leaned in as though to take a kiss from him.
"Hey, stop it!" Naru shouted.
Kaolla's attention, however, was drawn by the clouds above pulling away to fully reveal the red moon. Her eyes went blank, and the young foreign girl vanished within a cocoon-like pulse of light. When the light cleared, the adult version of Kaolla stood in its place, her sitar hung in front of her body as she lightly plucked at its strings.
"Dang, she really did transform," Kitsune remarked.
"Kaolla, no!" Amalla cried out, shoving Keitaro away.
"Look, everyone!" Kentaro called out, sliding onto the scene as though he'd been stalking the group the whole time. "It's just like I told you! Who's laughing now!?"
His rant was cut short when Amalla's shove sent Keitaro colliding into the other man, knocking them both to the ground with Kentaro flattened underneath.
"It ain't you," Seno quipped.
"Kaolla Su, adult version!" the transformed foreigner called out. "Present, lovely, and accounted for! And I have come to save nii-sama."
She flexed her fingers and began to play her sitar. It was obvious right away that there was more to her actions than simply playing the instrument, an unseen energy seeming to fill the air that all of them could sense. Tama, who had previously been unaccounted for, flew in over Kaolla's head and, after briefly glowing golden, multiplied into hundreds of copies.
"Lovely Tama Tama Attack!" Kaolla called out, as the orbiting turtles began to nose over and dive toward her sister.
Alas, a turtle swarm is not what one would call a precision attack, sending the Hinata tenants scattering for cover wherever they could find it. "Yo, friendly fire!" Seno complained, pushing Naru ahead of him to take shelter underneath a building awning.
Amalla, meanwhile, simply weathered the storm, shielding her face with her arms before glaring at her sister. "Kaolla! I will resort to force to awaken you if I must!" And without wasting a moment, she pulled her flute from behind her back, raising it to her lips and playing a melody to match her sister's.
The scattered clouds overhead darkened, and lightning began to lance out of the skies. Kaolla, demonstrating remarkable reaction time and dexterity, dodged each lightning bolt with ease, keeping her eyes closed to protect her vision, all while continuing to play her song to direct more and more waves of dive-bombing turtles into the attack. Amalla, for her part, showed herself to be just as agile as her sister as she dodged and weaved between the flying reptiles, only pausing her song to take the occasional breath.
With a guttural roar, Shiro joined the battle at its master's side, standing upright on its hind legs in a way that its kind shouldn't be able to do. It used its forelimbs to swat at the swarming flying turtles, though for some reason wasn't seeming to try to bite any of them. All in all, it somewhat resembled a scene out of a kaiju movie.
"Shouldn't we be trying to stop this?" Naru asked, watching the fight between sisters in equal parts entranced and concerned.
Seno, likewise, was looking back and forth between Kaolla and Amalla, then shook his head. "This is a bit more surreal than I'm willing to get in the middle of. Besides, we need to be worried about Keitaro. Come on!" he called, waving her forward as he darted out in a crouch, moving toward his helpless friend.
"Right!" the brunette agreed, running after the swordsman and covering her head to ward off any stray turtles or lightning blasts.
Together, the two of them grabbed Keitaro by the arms and hauled him into the mouth of an alley across the street, safely out of the contested battlefield. Naru immediately started trying to untie his ropes, but Seno held up his hand, then drew his sword and carefully cut the kanrinin free.
"Keitaro, are you alright?" Naru asked, genuine concern in her voice.
Shrugging his arms out of the ropes and then stretching his shoulders, Keitaro smiled at the two of them and gave a grateful nod. "Yeah, thanks, guys." His expression sobered, however, and he quickly got up to his feet. "But we have to help Su-chan. Her body can't take much more of this!"
True to his words, Kaolla's face was strained as she continued to face off with her sister, visibly sweating from the exertion.
"But what can you possibly do?" Naru argued, truly concerned at his selfless behavior. "It's too dangerous to go out there!"
It was clear that Keitaro had no intention of stopping, continuing to stride forward in what some might have seen as fearless determination. Seno, however, knew that it wasn't so much fearlessness but dogged determination on his long-time friend's part. He groaned in irritation, then stood up and dropped his hand to his sword. "You're right, Naru-san, but all we can do right now is cover the fool."
Both sisters noticed Keitaro's approach, however, pausing in their battle to turn toward him. "Nii-sama..." Kaolla said shakily, exhaustion evident in her tone and her expression, along with her concern.
"Stop right there, little man!" Amalla snarled, her eyes fixed on Keitaro but for a brief moment to flicker to the advancing Seno. "This is a family matter, so back off! It doesn't concern you!"
But Keitaro continued on regardless, shaking his head and keeping his gaze fixed on Kaolla. "No, I can't just walk away. Not when I know what the trouble is."
It was because of his attention focused on her that he noticed the ends of her hair begin to rise. He knew from reading an article about lightning once that such a thing was a sign of an imminent lightning strike. Without hesitation, he leaped forward and pushed her out of the way, barely avoiding getting struck by a pair of lightning bolts himself.
Kaolla maintained her balance, blinking away the temporary blindness and gasping at the sight of Keitaro sprawled on the ground before her. "Nii-sama!"
Groaning, his clothes and hair smoldering from the heat of the near miss, he nonetheless looked up at Kaolla and smiled through the pain. "Su-chan, you don't have to be in a hurry to grow up," he told her. "You're just fine just the way you are."
Those words stunned Kaolla, her mind flashing back to a memory from when she was much younger: Her older brother, affectionately ruffling her hair, telling her to hurry up and become an adult. But here, now, the man who'd just literally taken a hit for her was telling her that she needn't be rushing ahead. The conflict of her memories and the truth before her made her head spin.
"You're not...nii-sama..." she murmured, moments before her eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed to the ground, reverting to her normal form.
Taking advantage to the apparent end of the fighting, the Hinata tenants quickly moved to surround Keitaro, with Naru and Kitsune helping him to his feet while Seno and Motoko positioned themselves between Amalla and the others just to be on the safe side. The older Su looked down at her sister for several long moments, then up at the crimson moon still shining down on them.
May 6, 2006
Room 204, Hinata Apartments, Hinata City
0815 hours, local time
"Amalla-san went home," Keitaro told Kaolla the next morning, the young girl having just woken up in a futon that had been prepared for her. She'd slept the entire night away, recovering all the energy she'd expended the previous night. "She said she thinks you'll be fine from now on, though."
The young girl blinked, having no memory of what had happened. "My sister was here?" she mumbled sleepily.
Blinking in confusion a moment before realizing that short-term amnesia was at play, Keitaro decided to change the subject. "Su-chan... You know, if you're ever feeling lonely, you can always come talk to me about it."
Kaolla smiled, and that simple smile made Keitaro feel as if everything he'd gone through was worth the trouble. "Thanks, Keitaro, but with you and everyone else around, I won't ever feel lonely."
Keitaro smiled back in response. "I'm glad to hear it. And I'm sure everyone else will, too."
"In the meantime, I've been saving something for you," the blonde girl said coyly, grabbing hold of the covers with both hands.
Predictably, Keitaro once again demonstrated his aptitude for mental gymnastics by his mind leaping to wild conclusions. Kaolla didn't give him much time to deliberate on what she meant, however, flinging the futon covers away and jumping up to reveal a radio controller in her hands.
Oh, no, thought Keitaro.
"I finished the Mecha-Tamago Mark Two the other day and it's ready to play!" she gleefully exclaimed, moments before a small robotic version of Tama with a large cannon on its back sailed into the room, immediately beginning to chase Keitaro about while firing nonlethal—hopefully—rounds from its cannon at the man.
Meanwhile, in the outdoor bath, the other ladies of the building had gathered for their morning soak, the events of the the previous few days still at the forefront of their minds.
"I wonder why Kaolla-san was in such a hurry to grow up," Shinobu mused.
"It's kinda hard to say for sure," Kitsune said, standing in the thigh-deep water and taking deep breaths of the refreshing morning air. "All I know is that 'big brother' fella had a whole lot to do with it."
Sitting on the rocks nearby, Naru gazed into the water. "I wonder what sort of person Su-chan's older brother is..." she mused.
"I believe I can give you a satisfactory answer," a familiar voice said from the other end of the pool.
As the wind shifted, clearing the mists hovering over the spring somewhat, the speaker was revealed to be none other than Amalla, leaning back against the rocks and idly rubbing a washcloth over her face.
"Amalla-san!" Naru blurted out in surprise.
"We thought ya'd gone ahead and gone home!" Kitsune added.
Giving a wry smile, Amalla answered, "Well, I had been, but I realized I hadn't taken an opportunity to enjoy the onsen and since I felt the need to freshen up after the fighting..."
Kitsune laughed. "I can't blame ya at all for that!"
Shinobu, seemingly panicking about something, bumped into Kitsune in her haste to back up. The other girls turned to where she was looking in time to make out the hazy shape of a crocodilian—its white color allowing it to camouflage in the morning mists—floating in the waters just a few feet away.
"Oh, and of course I brought Shiro with me," Amalla said. "You don't mind, do you?"
The girls, as it turned out, did mind. Their shrieks broke the morning calmness as they scrambled to get out of the bathing area, retreating back inside and leaving Amalla and Shiro by themselves in the relaxing waters.
The older woman managed to hold in a smile, having played that little joke on them on purpose. She folded the washcloth up and rested it on top of her head. "'You don't have to be in a hurry to grow up,'" she repeated Keitaro's words from the night before as she closed her eyes. "I wish I'd been told those words."
She sensed another person's presence, but did not bother to open her eyes. She already knew exactly who it was. A tan-skinned woman with her dark hair pulled up into dreadlocks, wearing a well-cut black suit that strongly suggested professional hitman, stepped from behind a rock. An easy smile was on her face, and she lifted a hand to wave at Shiro as the alligator opened its maw to gurgle at her.
"Everything taken care of, Shaiya?" Amalla asked. "We're not going to be in trouble with the KMA, are we?"
The suited woman, Shaiya, shook her head. "We informed them that last night's events were an internal affair regarding the royal family, and that we would see to taking care of the civilians who encountered yours and Princess Kaolla's magic."
"Good." Amalla shifted slightly, sinking down into the waters enough to rest her head against the rocks. "The people living here look out for Kaolla, so they deserve better than having their memories erased."
Shaiya hummed in agreement. "Indeed, with our magic in play, they'll simply dismiss what they saw as an odd dream with no merit."
"Then give me just a few more minutes to relax and we can be on our way back to the homeland," Amalla said.
Bowing partly, Shaiya smiled as she answered, "Take your time, Your Highness."
