Chapter 22
Emotions

The changing of the hospital shift provided easy opportunity for Mois and Saburo. They stood in the hallway outside the intern changing rooms - female interns to the left, male interns to the right - and waited. They talked in low whispers and sipped on Monster Energy drinks that Saburo had bought from the nearby vending machine. Both were exhausted and the high dose of caffeine was a poor substitute for the sleep they both desperately needed. Slouched against one another, they waited. For Saburo, whose height and build was much closer to adult, not much time was required for an intern to enter wearing his hospital issued corridor greens.

Saburo sidled in behind him, his studied nonchalance conveyed perfectly that he was probably a med student on an errand or one of their own, perhaps on loan from another hospital. No-one questioned him as he followed the intern, and at once he matched the man to one of the metal lockers built into the wall. A single row of low wooden benches ran down the middle and other staff were seated upon in various stages of disrobing or dressing. One intern appeared to be asleep, sitting up and snoring loudly with his chin against his necktie, while another was fully dressed in his corridor greens, but was sipping a cup of vending machine coffee and playing Sudoku on his mobile. Just beyond that final pair, after the entrance to the shower stalls and the scrub sinks, were the bathroom stalls.

Saburo slipped into one and locked the high door. He slid the lever to indicate the stall was "Occupied" and sat heavily on the toilet. There was no lid to be lowered, so the breeches of his jeans were uncomfortably suspended over the pool of green disinfectant at the bottom. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief. Once again he was waiting this time for what seemed like hours, but was in reality only 20 minutes. When he heard no voices, no running water, no footfalls, he unlocked the stall door and peeked into the changing room. It was empty, all except for the one sleeping intern who now lay prostrate upon the bench.

A nasty thump if onto his side and into the air rolls he, midair to fall the clattering rain and onto the floor spills he, with wild arms windmilling air, as tumbles down... Oh cut the crap, you've a mission to perform, thought the poet mid-verse as he cat-padded across the room, stepped over the bench, and confronted the locker containing, he hoped, his quarry's hospital uniform. His lock picking tools were already out. He'd become quite adept with the pick and instruments over the years, especially the small amplifier that he snuggled behind his ear. The combination lock was utterly ineffective as Saburo first spun the numbered face clockwise, then anti-clockwise, then clockwise again. The amplifier allowed him to easily locate by clicks the three notches in the locking cams and the corresponding numbers. Once he knew the numbers, there were only 5 combinations that needed be tried. He popped the clasp.

The contents of the locker were spartan. Three fresh uniforms hung from the back. The metal door had been decorated with various obscenities common to all male locker rooms, whether used by highschool jocks or overworked medical interns. A shaving kit, some spare change, a pile of paperwork and an identification badge were on the hat shelf at eye level. Saburo took a uniform and the ID card. He was about to close the door, when he stopped: back went the uniform and ID badge and out came the shaving kit. A few whisk in the mirror at the scrub sink was all that was required to remove his goatee and his wire thin artiste's mustache. A few quick clips with the scissor removed his braided rat-tail. He washed the tonsorial tools, cleaned his nails and replaced the kit. the uniform and badge were once again removed and the locker closed.

The sleeping intern had not moved at all.

Safe within the bathroom stall, Saburo changed from his street clothes into the corridor greens. The purloined uniform was a tight fit in the shoulders and a bit baggy in the seat, but were otherwise neat. He sat again upon the toilet and removed from the pocket of his leather jacket a pocket notepad of white paper and his special pen. Quickly, he sketched a small bookbag and then with greater care drew in the functional and mechanical aspects. He laid the paper on the floor and clicked the pen's retractor. The ballpoint slid in and out of the barrel and the Keronian technology inside worked magic. The drawing transformed in to the receptacle he sought. He stuffed his street clothes into the cloth compartment and pulled closed the meticulously drawn zipper.

The second artwork was more involved. He worked directly on the ID badge. He printed his own name over the name of the former owner. A small self portrait replaced the doctor's unsmiling visage. He clicked the pen. Beneath his alterations the pigments shifted. Within eyeblinks, the badge identified at least facially and nominally not the doctor, but Saburo himself. The magstripe on the back still indicated the truth, but Saburo doubted he'd need to use that authority. I'm stealing a patient after all, not drugs. He clipped the badge to his breast pocket and slid the pen into the pocket behind.

The intern was still asleep, but he'd somehow managed to roll over onto his stomach without falling off the bench. He must have had a lot of practice. I wonder if he screws his girlfriend in that position? A subject for future poetics, no doubt about that. Saburo checked himself in the mirror. He no longer looked like a poet from the district. Clothes really do make the man. I can pass for one of them now. He adjusted his unruly cowlick and spit plastered it into the rest of his hair. I wonder how Mois is faring?

----

Mois didn't have lockpicking skills or brazenness, or the techno-marvel of a Magic Pen to help her. What she did have was 1,500 years of sharply honed blond Angolian cuteness and a wellspring of tears.

"Oh noes!" wailed the Angolan. She had opened a locker without a lock or nametag, correctly assuming that it was unassigned. She backed onto the bench, sat and with her head in hands began to bawl. Fat tears formed and ran down her thin cheeks. She looked even more the child than she usually did and her despondency immediately caught the attention of the surrounding nurses.

"What's wrong honey?" asked one.

"I forgot my uniform. My boyfriend is leaving me and I forgot... and... and," Mois sniffled. "This is, you know, my first day here, and now I'm going to get fired!"

"Oh," clucked an older nurse. "That won't happen." The matron looked down the aisle to one of the youngest and smallest nurses. "Kira. You're her size. Lend..."

"Mois" the Angolian wheezed helpfully. She blew her nose into a tissue provided by another nurse, who was stroking her back and cuddling her. All the room was looking on sympathetically.

"... lend Mois tomorrow's uniform. And Homulka, we'll need an extra pair of shoes. Step to people." She clapped to urge everyone towards action. As the room once again became a beehive of activity, now all directed towards attiring Mois properly, the senior nurse leaned down. "Now dry your tears sweetie. We take care of our own here at City."

Mois smiled behind the remainders of her crocodile tears, and inside her six-chambered heart was alternately racing and jumping for joy. I knew work it would nicely , she internally smirked, Birds of feathers, like, flock together. I wonder how Uncle and that mean old hacker are doing?

----

Kururu lay on his back on the chilly linoleum tiles under a wheeled hospital stretcher. The folding sides were hinged downward and the emergency blanket had been draped as a curtain, so that he was hidden from all except a deliberate search. Not that much searching was necessary. Kururu was croaking a steady stream of Keronian curses. His hands worked with the limited efficiency. His emergency toolkit, supplemented with tools he'd located in a custodian's closet, made the work take ten times as long even if he concentrated.

Keroro poked his nose into the improvised tent and chirruped. "Mois and Saburo are finding their disguises. What are you doing hiding under here, slacker? Do you have the stasis gun ready?"

"Its not a gun. Not this time." the hacker grumbled as he crawled from under the stretcher, "This time its a bed and you're lucky to get that." He connected a switch, purloined from a nearby lighting fixture to an improvised fusor made from a heart monitor display. The power source glowed. Kururu grimaced at the nasty smell of burnt insulation. He made an adjustment and the glow faded marginally. He giggled at his leader's expression, "Kekeke... You're asking me to make a gun with the technical equivalent of stone knives, bear skins, and chewing gum? Be happy I could make you a stun bed with these primitive parts."

Keroro's brow furrowed in puzzlement and he whined, "I can't very well shoot her into inertial stasis with a bed! What do we do? Hit her over the head with it?"

Kururu snorted sarcasm and without a word, flicked the switch without flourish and casually tossed the screwdriver over the bed. As soon as the grimy tool crossed the surface of the hard rubberized mattress it froze and hovered motionless: suspended in mid-air. "The whole surface is an inertial damper. Just put her on the bed and throw the switch." He reversed the switch setting and the screwdriver continued its flight over the stretcher to land with a clatter on the tile. "Oh, and don't stand on top of her or you'll be a statue until someone kills the power."

"Good advice," the green frog nodded to the yellow hacker.

"Oh, kukuku, before I forget. There's only enough power for ten hours. After that, we have to have more cesium to catalyze the fusor or she dies." Kururu giggled mirthfully.

Keroro gulped. This is going to be a tight squeeze . I hope the flygirl is on time.

----

Hanene crept along the banks of the small artificial peninsula jutting from the small artificial island that was Kansai International Airport. She was all too aware that beneath her feet, the boulders had been dredged from the sea floor to be piled upon a mountain of compressed Pokopenian trash. Even without studies in engineering, she knew the island was a marvel for such a primitive culture. When you can build worlds out of lifeless rock, achievements like this one seem magical. She giggled, I'll bet that in a thousand years, when these creatures have been properly subjugated; they will think these islands were built with our help. Like their ancestors thought that the pyramids must not have been. She raised the starlight spyglass to her left eye and closed her right. The small private heliport to the west of her position jumped into sharp green relief.

There were several of the primitive hovering vehicles on the tarmac. They ranged in size from a brace of single seater ultralights to a monstrous twin rotor that would easily lift the platoon and Natsumi. And probably every other platoon on the planet. She watched more intently. Ground crew were busy as a squad of regimented insects. They were fueling and prepping the twin rotor. What a stroke of luck. The very craft I need is the very one they intend to fly. This is going to be too easy. I'll have to wait until it is fueled though. She lowered the field glass and settled into a comfortable hiding niche where three granite boulders met.

I really don't know why I'm doing this? All the orders over the years to neutralize Natsumi, and now on my final days, fate just drops the solution in my lap. Hanene hissed curses roundly . And yet here I am, trying to save her? Why? She clucked her tongue. She chided herself in mental monologue. Don't overcomplicate your motives, Hanene! You gave up on Natsumi's elimination when the missile plot failed. And now you're saving her because you've been ordered to... and maybe, just maybe, you started to like her and feel just a tad guilty? Just a tad? She shook her head to clear the disturbing thoughts, well aware that at her power level she could accidentally broadcast them to the entire island.

On the field, a horn sounded and she raised the spyglass again. The ground crew was retreating from the vehicle. Any minute now, a pilot and co-pilot would emerge from the hangar and the craft would ascend. She stowed the spyglass and leapt upwards and forwards. The breeze caught the sails of her hood, now turned with the dark night sky facing outward, and she glided over the chainlink fence. She turned her NMP field hard to full and raced down the tarmac. The breeze caught her again and she buoyed into the air, far above the field lights' illumination. This glide was longer, the landing more precise. Hanene floated down not five meters from the pilot-side entry hatch. The hatch was open and she bounded inside. In the next heartbeats she had strapped herself in.

The controls were both alien and familiar to her eyes, but her second sight was suffused with the energies, which played and leapt over the surfaces, switches and buttons. The pilots who had flown this craft had left muscle memories imprinted on the controls. Her hand glided easily and familiarly to the switches for the electrical system and the big red button marked "ignition". The rotors engaged and rotated at ever higher speed eventually reaching a chopping crescendo that blanked out all other sound. She closed the pilot side door and pushed the stick forward and the helicopter rose forward and up at the same time. She was aloft.

Below, personnel were running onto the field, chasing the rapidly rising aircraft. She pushed a stud in the center of her wing logo and obediently her skimmer rose to the port beam of her theft. The ground crew below watched open mouthed as both craft flew away. She waved cheerily to them, as she pushed on through the gathering fog of the pre-dawn, "I can't imagine Nishizawa Corporation will miss their chopper too much!"

----

The limousine cut a path through the early morning fog. The elongated vehicle was flanked left and right and to the rear by the usual assortment of paramilitary heavy vehicles. Paul sat in what was once his usual seat. His back was to the partition separating the cab from the coach, and to his left was the window. He had a view of the driver of the other car and beyond, the ocean. This is what I miss. Paul thought as the vista of blacktop and mirror smooth water scrolled passed the tinted windows. Riding in secure comfort without having to drive myself: a military at my back and power I can express at the push of a button or the bark of an order. Bayo-sama knows me better than I know myself, but he does not know that I'm happier with all that responsibility behind me.

His gaze turned from the scenery to the other occupant of the coach. Momoka was taller than he remembered and had filled out in a manner to be expected. She sat in the farthest corner from him. Where once long ago, and for all the time he'd known her, she had stared at her lap; her eyes were up and alert and she was watching the neighboring lane of traffic. Always she looked forward, beyond the limousine's right shadow, forward, into the lane of oncoming traffic. Her eyes flicked ever so slightly as opposite travelers passed as if, at a relative 100 clicks an hour, she might catch a glimpse of a friend. She hadn't thrown a single fit or screeched an insistent order at him all morning.

She became aware of Paul's fixed stare, turned and smiled and with a polite hostess demeanor she certainly did not learn from her mother, but possibly from the etiquette instructor, which by now he assumed she had, asked, "Are you okay, Paul? What's on your mind?"

He ruminated on the question, what am I thinking? That she's more grown up than I remember? That she is become a fine lady? No, that's not it. "I was thinking how mature you've become, Ms. Nishizawa. And how everything has changed in the last few years."

Momoka turned back towards the window. Her hand raised and she chewed on her thumbnail, a compromise between teenage auto-cannibalism and toddler thumb sucking. "I have definitely learned some discipline." she laughed. "And my nastier tendencies are under control. Having to do stuff for myself after you left my father's service taught me a lot. I remember that first day without you hanging over my shoulder. Do you remember?" At his nod, she continued, "I'll bet you don't. It was the day I stole a car and blew up the garage. It was the day I realized that Daddy was always watching me, that there were sensors in all my clothing and spycams in every vehicle and piece of furniture. Even Fuyuki-kun's house was bugged and all the shops I ever went to. Did you know about them, Paul?"

I could lie , he thought, tell her what she probably wants to hear, but why bother. It is no longer my job to keep her happy. "Of course I knew," he answered pridefully. "I ordered some of them installed and sewed in some of the sensors myself."

"I thought so," sighed Momoka. "They're all gone now. The night you resigned, I had it out with Daddy. I told him I was sick and tired of living in a fishbowl and that I was old enough to know what was safe and what wasn't."

So there are no bugs here, or at least Bayo told her there aren't. Hardly matters. What can he do? Fire me? Paul snorted. "I cannot imagine that your Father was too happy about that? He likes to be in control."

The caravan had reached the end of the causeway and had turned left to circle the public airport to Nishizawa's private helipad and hangar. The fog was still thick and from the still flags, Paul knew it would remain thick until the rising sun burnt the low-flying clouds away. As they circled passed the secondary runway, Paul observed the efficient landing of a Gulfstream private jet, outfitted for long distance travel. How long since I flew one of those, with clearance to land at an international runway? More years than I care to count, before the Nishizawa's even. He realized that Momoka had not answered him and rephrased his question, "Your father must have been very angry?"

"Oh yes, but Mama calmed him down. I never knew she was on my side. I barely knew her at all, but that night I felt very close to her." Momoka nodded. She stopped chewing at her nail and helped herself to a diet cola from the minibar. "Would you like one Paul? All I have is Nishizawa cola though. Daddy gets it at a discount."

Paul shook his head though his fingers twitched at the muscle memory of opening and serving soda to a younger Momoka. His muscles were shocked at the sight of her opening the can herself and drinking from it without a straw or glass. She seemed to savour the taste and then looked into the spillpoint of the can.

"Do you know what I had last year Paul?" She looked over at her former butler and bodyguard and grinned impishly. "For the very first time?"

Paul braced himself. He became visibly more restricted both in manner and movements. Here it comes. This is when the little brat tells me she's having sex. "I have no idea," he said, as nonchalantly as possible.

She giggled, "I didn't say that right, did I?" She laughed and drank more soda. "Last year was the first time I had a Mountain Dew - an American lemon-lime soda - and it was the first time I said I enjoyed something that someone didn't buy me a thousand cases or try to take over the company to give it to me on my birthday."

Paul relaxed and this time it was his turn to laugh. The limousine was slowing, as much from the airport traffic as in preparation to shift lanes to turn into the private portion of the island. He didn't know what to say, and so said nothing. The limo executed the turn and slowed as it approached the gate. Through the thick windows of bulletproof glass that encased the cab, he heard it. A familiar whine and thrumming cacaphony. His eyes went wide and his head bolt upright. His hand was reaching for the door handle even as he shouted into the intercom, "STOP THE CAR!"

He was out the door while the car was still rolling and was at the fence in time to see Nishizawa's Boeing-Vertol 234 rise from its pad, twin rotors assaulting the air and banishing the fog from the tarmac. He watched helplessly as it lifted away. Something smaller, not a helicopter, rose to follow it. The distance, lighting, and atmospheric disturbance were such that the smaller shape could be anything from a bird to a banana cream pie and before Paul could identify it both aircraft and minuscule shadow disappeared into the ocean fog.

Paul swore and Momoka was at his elbow. She was in awe and stated the obvious. "Someone stole our ride!" Her cola had been abandoned in the car. She looked up at Paul and waited patiently for him to say the order she was no doubt dying to give, but was politely declining to voice.

"After them!" Paul declared automatically. "They cannot be allowed to escape." He was already giving orders to the troops who had also disembarked from their vehicles. "You," he pointed a finger at a random paramilitary, "talk to the field master and get Sikorsky spot fueled, post-haste, and you," he pointed out another, "get on the horn and get the transponder codes. I want to know where the fuck they're going! Momoka?"

The girl looked up at him as he ordered her with a question that might have been a friendly suggestion if not for the tone, "Maybe you should call Fuyuki and tell him we'll be a little late?"

Momoka hit the speed dial on her phone and when there was no answer, she sent a text message.

----

Fuyuki was asleep on a couch in the waiting room. At first he had watched the random people walk by: the nurses, the doctors, the police officers, the patients and patients once been. Finally, he had switched his mobile to silent and prostrated himself on the uncomfortable couch. He was worried about his sister, but had a part of his own to play and it wouldn't do to be tired. Eventually he fell asleep. He was wakened by the piping voice of his best froggy friend and the small hand that shook and squeezed his arm. "Fuyuki-dono, Fuyuki-dono. Wake up! It is time."

Fuyuki sat up almost immediately and rubbed his swollen eyes. His joints ached from the uncomfortable surface and he was hungry. If he closed his eyes, he could almost convince himself that everything had all been a very bad dream: his sister in a hospital bed, mortally wounded; his mother in tears, with different wounds; his plucky friend leaving for home, just when he was needed most; the rescue attempt, that... "Remind me what I have to do again?"

Keroro reminded him in as few words as possible and then added, "You must hurry Fuyuki. Mama Aki will take much convincing to leave Natsumi's side. The sun is rising and we have not much time before Hanene arrives with our transport. A little more than I expected though. She says she must circle the city and come in low so as to not be visible on radar, whatever that means? Come," he tugged his friends arm, "Everyone is ready except you!" He pushed and prodded Fuyuki until the boy rose and still in the grip of slumber, shambled after the frog. Keroro led him to a storage closet and opened the door with a grand swish of his arm as though he were a maitre d' at a fancy downtown restaurant.

Inside, most of the available space was taken up by a wheeled stretcher. Mois and Saburo were barely recognizable in their hospital uniforms. Kururu was easily recognized by his feet, which projected from under the stretcher and by the non-stop stream of Keronian invective that followed each hammer swing. There was a hiss of electricity and the smell of burning insulation. "Hand me that wire will you?" Fuyuki handed the outstretched yellow hand one end of a piece of heavy romex that was coiled atop the mattress.

"I thought you said everyone was ready?" he queried the sergeant.

"Some are just more ready than others!" Keroro protested, "At least I haven't forgotten anyone and this time it doesn't matter that Americans wear shoes indoors!"

From under the cart Kururu giggled and then cursed roundly as another shower of sparks gouted.

----

Tamama piloted his skimmer high above the landscape in the hours before the sun would rise. He was high enough to see a false dawn, but low enough to not see the tops of Osaka island's interior mountains. Strapped onto the anterior compartment was his duffel with all the booty he cared to bring from the planet. "Let Momoka keep the toys," he thought. "My powers will bring me better ones."

There was a swirl of clouds that puffed from the horizon. It flickered with electric fire and smoke. He pulled sharply on the control stick intending to lift over the localized storm, but the stick did not respond. The skimmer flew forward, to the very edge of the cloud and stopped. The black frog near flipped over the control console and into the red-grey of the cloud bank. He righted himself.

Before him the clouds swirled, formed, meshed and approximated a demon face. "Ah, I see you are keeping that soul safe for me."

"What?" Tamama squeaked.

"Do you not remember?" the demon blew cold mist across Tamama. "I give you power. I eliminate your enemies. You..." the cloud wheeled around him, "Give me your soul. My side of the bargain is coming fulfilled. One of your enemies has been eliminated and soon another shall follow and another and another. Your soul will be mine..."

The cloud dispersed in maniacal laughter.

The skimmer started forward again and little Tamama flew on to his rendezvous.

----

Death is like jumping into an icy pond, the spirit reflected. Without control, water hits you like a brick and drives hot needles under your skin. You drown in it screaming. And you never expect to wake up and not hurt ever again, and that's truth. He opened his eyes and it was indeed like waking up from one nightmare into another, I never believed in an afterlife, so why am I here? Here? Of all places here?

He was standing on the exact spot where he had last seen his Natsumi, behind the counter at Nuwah's Pets. The wan sunlight that tepidly peeked through the misty shadows of early dawn glanced through the front window, and what little shone passed the surface of the counter rendered his blue body translucent. He was alone. the wall was still adorned with smears of her blood, now dry and browning from the bright red he remembered. There was her handprint in the blood on the floor and next to it his own small footprint. He matched the ghostly outline of his toes into the real outline in the blood. The fit was precise.

There was a sound from the back of the store and he fell into fighting stance. He could sense a door opening, footfalls approaching him, easy breathing and serenity. He leapt to the top of the counter and drew his Wakizashi, which was still smeared with his own blood and barked "Who goes there?" but no sound came. His mouth had moved he was certain of the fact, but he had no lungs to fill, no breath to expel. He could make no sound.

The approaching figure made no sound either, but by choice, not design. She was ninja and she faced him and cleanly drew her own sword. "Halt, spirit," she commanded in a serious whisper, "I have no business with you. Who were you? Why are you here?"

He wanted to say 'I was once Zeroro. I was once Dororo." He wanted to say something, anything, but there was no air. She is Ninja? Maybe she can hear my jutsu. He looked beyond the ninja's mask, beyond thought, and his ghostly eyes whispered what his mouth could not, I was once Zeroro and once Dororo. I was once the protector of the planet. I was once the protector of Natsumi Hinata. Now spirit am I,  and protector only of myself. I sought only a death in honor and now here in the place I least want to be am I. I am Ninja and bound in life and in death... it seems. He blinked, Who are you? Why are you here?

The woman spoke: her voice the catlike purr of ice crystals sleeting on cold metal. "I am Yorushimo. I am Blizzard. I am cold death, silent to any who meet my steel. I am at the command of Bayo Nishizawa, and I am to find the attacker of Natsumi Hinata." She sheathed her sword behind her left shoulder. "I am not above working together. They say a spirit can see what the living cannot? Perhaps you can see where my... where our quarry went? Once he is destroyed, you should go to your reward and your ancestors."

Dororo sheathed his ghostly blade that dripped ghostly blood that vanished halfway to the all too solid floor. The ninja crossed the space between them. She was tall, thin, muscular, honed like a razor's fine edge, trained like a well-aimed pistol, tempered like a samurai sword. "Look there, spirit..." She gestured with a sweep of her gloved hand. "Tell me what you saw. Tell me what you now see."

Dororo's eyes described the man he saw: the long duster trench, the gun, the haggard, unshaven face and gaunt skeletal hands, and the wild, bloodshot eyes. He stood where the man had stood, surrounded by red circles that marked where each cartridge had fallen. He pantomimed the man's actions as he reacted to Dororo's entrance. He imitated the man's flight and wafted towards the door and through the door and pale to invisible in the oblique light of the rising sun, he drifted down the street, hot on the etheric scent of a quarry long fled.

The ninja unlocked the door to the shop, slipped out, and leaving the door hanging open. She leaped to the top of the awning and thence to a street lamp. She followed the drifting spirit down the avenue from high above, where she would be as unnoticed as he. Dororo knew that a familiar grin had formed behind the mask of the female's shadow. the same half-smile had formed behind the ectoplasmic image of his own mask. The grin was ferocious. The hunt was on.

There is honor, he thought, I will avenge you Natsumi.

----

Natsumi, his sister, lay on the bed in the critical care room, when Fuyuki, wearing the Sergeant's battle cap with the NMP field turned to the highest setting, slipped in through the door. His mother roused to watch the door open from nothing, close behind nothing. Not until Fuyuki touched her did her exhausted eyes see her son. "How is she Mama?" he asked. "Have they told you anything?"

Aki trembled. All her strength was long since drained and her voice was hoarse. "There's been no change. That's what the last doctor said. They check every hour." She reached down and stroked her daughters hand, the one not encumbered by an IV needle. "She might be awake in minutes or it might take years. I'm not going to leave here until she does. The doctors say that she might hear me if I talk to her."

That explains the hoarseness: a one-sided conversation. I wonder if Natsumi can hear us? I mean really. I think I read once a story by a man written in a coma. That was so long ago. Fuyuki mentally shrugged and outwardly addressed his mother in his best adult tone. For once his voice cooperated by not cracking, "Mama, you can't just sit here. You need to eat. You need to sleep. Natsumi would want you strong for her."

"I'm not sleepy." his mother protested. Her voice cracked in a way that Fuyuki's had not. "I have to be here for her. What if she... if she..." and his mother dissolved in tears. "She should be with her family."

"Mother," Fuyuki said. I don't know how to comfort you. I've never seen you cry. "Mother, there's a break room down the hall. Its not far. We will hear if there is an emergency and come back. Natsumi is safe with all this.." he waved his hand as much to indicate the equipment as the entire hospital, "... all this to watch her and take care of her. She is safe. Come with me."

He was surprised when Aki dried her eyes and stood unsteadily. "Maybe some soup would help," she admitted. She allowed Fuyuki to lead her out of the room.

No-one had seen him enter, and with Aki in tow, no-one commented at his departure. He guided her down the hallway to the door of the break room. He ushered her through the entrance just in time to catch a glimpse of Saburo and Mois pushing the stretcher up the hallway and angling it into Natsumi's room. Okay, he thought, stall for ten minutes and then tell Mama Gunso's plan. I'll need some change for the vending machines. He fished in his pocket and found his mobile among a few 100 yen notes and coins. The ringer was not active, but the rear screen flashed a text message alert. He flipped the phone open and read, "we're on our way, but we'll be a little late." The message was a half hour old and the affixed name was Momoka.

She'll be late? Late for what? I wonder what Momoka is up to?

----

Momoka looked down on the choppy waters of the bay. Paul was flying low, with the rising sun at their back. He had abbreviated the checklist as much as he dared while ground crew simultaneously fueled the commercial grade chopper. On the screen set into the console between them, a small blue X indicated the location, speed and direction of every craft in the vicinity. Most were far above. One, though, had circled the suburbs of Osaka and was now angling inwards towards the center of the circle - the stolen Boeing. Paul had expertly guided them across half the intervening space and now adjusted their heading to intercept.

"They're bigger and slower than us and have a much more limited range. I can't force them down," he explained, "but I can follow them."

The helicopter banked to the left and through the rising sun Momoka could see down to the streets below. We're not far from Fuyuki's house, she thought. I can almost see the school from here.

----

The limousine prowled the dawn streets of suburban Osaka. Giroro dipped his meat pastry in the softboiled duck egg that had been provided for their breakfast. The windows were tinted and double thick and his eyes could detect a shock absorbing fluid between the plates. Likely the glass is bulletproof, he mused. The frame of this vehicle seems reinforced. I've never seen my friend take his security so seriously. He mirrored Sir Jeff: dip, munch, chew, swallow, smear butter, dip, munch, chew swallow. This is almost ludicrous. There was hardly any time for his enemies to be alerted to our presence. Sir Jeff's hand shook visibly as he lifted a coffee in a transport-lidded cardboard cup. He has not relaxed since we disembarked and he seems to have become increasingly apprehensive as we've neared the base.

The limousine had been waiting at the commercial class hangar, and was accompanied by a small panel van. The van was loaded with Sir Jeff's carry-on. The van dogged the limousine as they cruised behind the terminal and entered the flow of traffic entering a causeway. They were surrounded by a pack of transports filled with common passengers and soon separated. Giroro's ears could detect the rumble and screech of a light rail train that ran on the deck below. To either side Osaka bay stretched away. To the north he could see the sharp outline of Osaka proper and to the southwest the broader port. The causeway bridged to the mainland and soon merged with city traffic. When the driver inquired, Giroro recalled and told him the Hinata's street address.

Sir Jeff was silent throughout the sojourn. He was silent as he offered Giroro a styrene breakfast tray from the hot locker and juice from the tiny fridge. He was silent as he ate. He was silent as his eyes scanned the closed circuit monitor that showed both the route of the vehicle and the view of the driver progressed down the motorway, then off an exit onto a main thoroughfare, and then down intersections and ever narrowing streets. He tensed anytime the car stopped at a traffic light and relaxed marginally when the light changed. He seemed happiest to be moving. He's started to tell me something at least four times, Giroro appraised. Does he know about the base? He certainly has the connections to know if he wanted to know. He has never engaged me as anything other than human. No, no, there is something else that he is hiding.

The streets were turning familiar. They'd not changed much in 4 years. A few stores had different signs or differently styled signs. The sight of the Kisshou training facility nearly caused Giroro to lurch from his seat. There's the gymnasium where Natsumi and I danced, and there's the sports' field where she rescued me from the suit, and the track where we won the three-legged race, and the pool where we... his mind was filled with conflicting images. He pursed his thin lips and gritted his teeth as houses slid by silently. There were a few children walking to classes and he readied himself to stop the driver and leap from the seat in case Natsumi were among them, but she was not.

Shockingly though, the familiar house was dark when they arrived, and Aki's motorcycle was still parked and chained to the front porch. The driver killed the engine and Giroro waited as he exited the driver's compartment and opened Giroro's door from the passenger compartment. Giroro strained to hear. He could hear no familiar voices or cacaphony of a family rushing for work or school from the direction of the house. He could not smell the familiar scent of eggs nor sausage. The gate was latched and the previous evening's mail was still stuffed in the keeper box. This is not right, he thought. "Jeff?" he asked, the familiar nominal still grating on his throat, "Can you please wait for my return? They are not expecting my arrival and I may need transport elsewhere?"

Sir Jeff looked at the house nervously and licked his lips. "Sure," he agreed. "No problem. We'll circle the block a few dozen times." He utterly failed to make the jaunty twirl in the air with his index finger to indicate the proposed route of the car. He only nodded apprehensively such that the driver closed the door behind Giroro, sealing Sir Jeff safely in his black bulletproof cocoon. The driver quickly joined him and the automobile started, pulled onto the street proper and crept leisurely away leaving Giroro flatfooted in his business suit, staring at the house.

Giroro squared his biomechanoid shoulders and unlatched the gate, which oiled open with a familiarly protesting creak at the very end of its travel. The walk was familiar, each crack and faded carbon scorch of a long-ago explosion trap was etched in his memory, but the bushes that lined the concrete path were not. There seemed to be more shrubbery and more flowers planted at the base of each effusion of foliage, and they were all too obviously the subjects of meticulous care. Upon the shaded front stoop there was a flowerbox and rose vines that twisted around a trellis to either side of the entrance. The flowers were just beginning to bloom. The Hinata's must still live here. Giroro insisted, I spoke to Fuyuki just last year. Yes, he sounded much more mature, but I am certain it was him. Yet this unceasing profusion of plants is not their style.

He knocked at the door and then rang the bell. He strained with his left earpad. There was still no sound from within - not even a whisper or a whimper. He tried the knob. The door was locked. He knocked again and still no-one responded. He peered in the adjacent window, but the drawn drapes completely blocked his view of the front den. He wrinkled his forehead, considering, and with reluctance strode off the side of the porch and into the side yard. His jaw dropped. His eyes widened. Someone has been busy, he appraised.

His eyes rove over what had once been a flat expanse of grass that formed the level foundation for his tent and the breezeway for the clothesline. The line had been repositioned to run at right angles to the fence, where the clothing would make best use of the light draft that blew off the backyard. The space once occupied by his tent had been transformed into a vegetable garden: sunflower stalks provided canes up which spring pea vines were creeping. On the opposite side a similar arrangement provided aerial lift to the vine of grape tomatoes. The center though was most surprising: a great pile of earth and rock had been erected and carefully sculpted into a terraced two meter high garden with a turnstile overhanging ladder arrangement. There were vegetable planted and alternated with odorous plants (spices?) and decorative vines on each terrace. There was a gurgling trickle of water that flowed in a cascade down bare rocks into a primitive drain. He could hear the strain of a low-power osmotic pump at work just below the surface. It must be connected to those optical conversion panels mounted on the fence. Someone has been very busy.

He tried the sliding glass door to the kitchen. Not only were the drapes drawn, but the door was also bolted. He was tempted to smash the glass sheet and step through the broken transparency, but That's no way to announce, "I'm home." If I'm going to break and enter; I should be more subtle. He glanced up at Natsumi's window, which was shut and shuttered and no doubt locked. He wandered around to the back door and back stoop, where he and Aki had once shared a cup of coffee the morning after... he shook his head. I'm not going to go there. Surely I've done enough in this world to prove I am worthy of forgiveness for my oversight and carelessness. The back door was also locked. He looked up to the second floor where Fuyuki's window was open a few centimeters.

Just enough , concluded Giroro. With a cautionary glance around he lay down on the grass and opened his shirt. Three quick thumps freed his frog-self from the man-equin shell. He stretched. Aimed himself. Gathered. Leaped. He soared upwards coming down in an arc to land exactly on the window sill. He strained upwards on the slider until there was room to slip feet first underneath the runner. He landed with a thump on the floor. The room before him was not Fuyuki's, at least no Fuyuki with which he was familiar. The floors were clear of debris, clothing, and random scraps of paper. The braid rug was vacuumed. There was a canvas manger-hamper sectioned into whites and colors. The wastebasket liner was half full. The desk, nightstand, and other surfaces were equally bare and dustless. A bookbag hung from one bedpost and a duffel was slung over the other.

What struck Giroro, as much as the cleanliness, was the change of decorations. All those cabal symbols are gone and the crystal skull. He regarded a poster that adorned the closet door. Who are these Chiba Lotto Marines? Are they a warrior force? That would explain the clubs they carry. Maybe they are fake warriors as I became: they battle to entertain, and those clubs must cause severe damage. That would explain their head armor and that one who wears chest armor and a mask.

He cautiously opened the door to the hallway. The overhead light still glowed and the fanblades spun as though someone had forgotten the switch. Two of the three remaining doors were open. He peeked into the empty bathroom and then took a casual glance across the landing into Mama Aki's bedchamber, which looked much as he remembered it: a bed, dressers, and papers and artwork laid out everywhere. The desk was a new addition, but unremarkable. Even three years ago, Aki wanted a home office.

He almost dared not look into Natsumi's room. Might time have changed her into someone else? The door was open only a crack and the morning sunlight speared through into the hallway. He grimaced, held his breath and gave the door a gentle push.

The room was unexpectedly bright and warm. The draperies are parted and those reflectors shine the morning sun inside. And the room is warm. That is not like Natsumi. She would just turn on the lamps. The only light he could see was upon the desk, but the bulb was not incandescent. He studied it: there was no filament. He pressed the switch and the bulb lit, but it did not flicker as a florescent would. It reminds me of an indicator on a weapon, but much larger. Pokopenian technology. He extinguished the lamp and set the fixture back down on the desk.

The desk, like Fuyuki's, was clear of papers, but the walls were decorated with them in a much gaudier way. Who is this King of the Lions? he wondered. The images were vainglorious, in a style unfamiliar to him: an upward shining feline face and a single silhouette of a feline body. "Why did Pokopenians render a Caitian shrine," he wondered aloud, "and how did my Natsumi value it?"

On a stand between the desk and Natsumi's bed was a tank made of clear glass. He could hear a chirruping from within the enclosure. There were a few cricket hopping about and a couple of denuded branches. Perched on the end of one branch was a small red frog with bright green eyes. It blinked torpidly at him as though in greeting and without thinking, Giroro blinked in return. He shook his head. The frogs tongue lanced out and pinned a cricket and the amphibian flicked in his tongue and gulped down the morsel. What an odd pet, he thought.

The bed was much as he remembered it. Right down to a small white lace pillow. He shied away from closer inspection. Too many memories. Such a long ago time. Best forgotten. He forcibly adjusted his gaze to the bookcase at the foot of the bed. He ambled over. The books were not as he expected. The sports books were gone. So to were the books of poetry he had sometimes seen her reading through his stealthily placed camera so very long ago. He didn't recognize the subjects or the titles: "Ec-o-log-ic-mac-ro-ec-o-nim-ics," he sounded out. The words meant nothing to him.

The top shelf of the bookcase did. Cautiously he extended a hand and grasped the furry foot. He pulled and down slid a very familiar plush rabbit. The seams had been well-kept and one had been carefully re-stitched. This is the rabbit I gave her. I would have thought Natsumi would have disposed of it. He replaced the rabbit. Next to the plush was an even more familiar surprise, though when last he'd seen it, he'd slipped a letter behind it and the letter was gone: a photograph of him and Natsumi holding each other and smiling at the camera dressed in their party finery. The Pokopenian dance ritual, he thought, Even if she had kept the plush, why would she keep a picture of one who failed her and whom she hated?

He shook his head. If she had forgiven me she would have sought me out. She keeps these for the same reason I keep the picture from from my bandoleer - to remind her of other times. Still I must find her and ask her. Perhaps she is only waiting to forgive me; if I only were to ask? He turned from the photograph and the plush and walked back through the door. He closed it carefully behind him and silently padded down the stairs.

The house was as empty inside as it had sounded from outside. The den was empty. The television was off in the family nook. Most notably there were no shoes left by the door. Only when everyone is out are all the shoes gone, Giroro appraised. Nevertheless he opened the door under the stairs and entered the crawlspace. He had not much hope that the platoon was still there and he was not disappointed. Keroro's room was no longer there. The door was there, but the sigil-star had been removed and inside was a dark and empty basement room - bare concrete floors, walls, and ceiling. Giroro closed the door and climbed back to the foyer. He sighed reflectively.

He crossed to the kitchen. There was a cold, half-eaten dinner on the table. Someone had spilled a glass of wine and it had soaked through the tablecloth and dried on the floor. There were containers of take-out on the counter. One container was half-tipped over and a feline, with his buttocks in the air and his head buried in the paper box, was busily munching on the contents. At Giroro's entrance the cat abruptly stopped eating, licked his paws and swabbed his whiskers clean.

Giroro laughed. All innocent, as if he thought I didn't notice that he was eating off the counter. The cat jumped down and sauntered over to Giroro and rubbed against his legs, purring loudly. "Oh, is that it? You think you know me? Well, Mister Fuzzball. I doubt we have been introduced." He petted the top of the cat's head and it arched under his hand, dragged his back under the hand, the tail held high to encourage further petting. Giroro petted the cat again. "You are much friendlier than any feline I have ever met, but I cannot stay to make friends. I must find Natsumi before I leave this planet."

He stood and strode decisively down the hall and the cat followed him. The purr was loud and insistent. I must try the Pokopenian training facility while I still have transportation, he thought. His tiny hand was already out and reaching for the door knob when he remembered. I may be "home", but I still need my suit. He turned to retrieve the man-equin from its slumber in the back yard. The cat had stopped following him in mid-hallway and as he turned, the beast leaped to the top of the hall lamptable and settled his furry rear upon the phone and answering machine. He meowed loudly.

Giroro ignored him and retraced his steps to the kitchen entrance. The cat yowled insistently. Giroro turned. "What is it?" he fumed.

The cat set his forepaw down on the play button. The last message began to play. The message started out commonly enough and then was interrupted when Aki answered the phone. The caller re-identified himself and began again:

"Hinata-san, I am Sergeant-Detective Hiyasho. I regret to inform you that there has been trouble at your daughter Natsumi's work..."

If Giroro had had sufficiently mobile ears, or ears at all, they would have perked at the words "trouble" and "Natsumi". As it was he walked trance-like back to the table and cocked an earpad at it. Aki's voice had asked what the trouble was? The voice of Sergeant-Detective Hiyasho continued:

"There was a robbery and your daughter was wounded by the robber."

Both Aki's recorded voice and Giroro's actual one breathed "No..."

"We have taken her to the emergency room at City Hospital."

There were questions and answers afterwards, but Giroro didn't hear them. He was charging out the garden door. He popped the chest on the man-equin and sealed himself within the foam's embrace. He jogged around the front. With perfect timing Sir Jeff's limousine was pulling around the corner. Giroro flagged them down and without waiting for the chauffeur popped the back door and swung himself into the backseat. "Jeff," he said without a pause, "I need to go to Osaka City Hospital. Now!'

Sir Jeff didn't wait for explanation. He ordered the driver through the intercom. The driver replied shortly, "There are five City Hospitals, sir. Do we have a preference?"

Giroro was at a loss. The medtechs would take her to the closest hospital. Would Natsumi have worked close to home? He dithered, "The closest one." Jeff repeated the order to the driver.

As the stretch vehicle pulled from the curb, Sir Jeff considered his friend and former employee. He raised his eyebrows questioningly, "My guess is they weren't home?"

"No," Giroro explained, "They are at City Hospital and my Natsumi is in danger. We shall have to check each one until we find her."

"Yes, even my contacts would not be able to break the patient privacy shield. No-one will tell us she is there unless we come in person." Sir Jeff pressed the button on the intercom again and encouraged, "Driver? Go faster."

----

The ghostly Keronian floated through the green doorway painted in peeling latex paint as the ninja crashed through the yellowed window with the cracked panes. His shimmering spectral sword was deathly drawn and cadaverously carried. Her solid shurikennista was liberally loaded. Between the two slept their quarry. He was sprawled on a soiled, blue striped futon on a floor littered with brown waxed paper food containers and pink disposable foam bowls that once held yellow string noodles and now held evergreen mold clumps. Empty silver cans of tan Kirin lager rolled about the blackened wood. Medical syringes and thick, taupe rubber bands were scattered along with the refuse, the contents within dried a pale orange. In a particularly littered corner the trash rustled and a red rat ran across the room. The squat was squalid and the ninja held back a wretch of disgust. The ghost was unaffected.

"This is him?" she whispered quietly. At the ghost's nod, she triggered her throat microphone and subvocalized."We have found him, sir. Send your men to my location." She flipped the GPS locator at her belt and it pulsed softly. "Sixth floor... Just follow the screams."

The ninja considered the man, the criminal, the thief, the attempted murderer at her feet. His gun was not in evidence and she drew her sword. She poked the sleeper on the cheek. She marked him with the tiniest nick, but it was enough to evoke a trickle of blood down his cheek and over his nose to drip off the tip. "Wake up." she commanded with a growl. He did not stir. She hit him with the flat of the blade, such that it would sting. The man rolled over on his back and opened his bleary eyes.

The first thing he saw was not the ninja, but the ghostly Keronian floating over him with drawn weapon dripping blood. The first thing he felt was the blood dribbling down his cheek.

He screamed, and he didn't stop screaming even when Nishizawa paramilitary came to take him away.

----

"Saburo? Do you love me?"

The question had come too suddenly for Saburo. The almost-but-not-quite fitting lab coat was itchy. He looked across the stretcher bearing Natsumi safe in her biostasis freeze. Her face was still in neither a rictus of pain nor the serenity of sleep, but somewhere in between. He'd been watching it, not expecting, but wondering if there might be some flicker of life. There hadn't been any as he'd lifted her from the hospital bed and disconnected the life support. A device Kururu had given him faked the signals - the hospital staff would not notice Natsumi's absence until they were long gone. With the stasis field activated, she had become a statue. He couldn't even touch her and he wanted to.

"Saburo?" Mois repeated. "Do you love me?"

He looked up at the young blond face that was far older than his own. The eternal puppy, how I wanted that once, he thought. The memories floated across him: the pleasure any night he wanted it. Her mouth on his lips, on my cock ... He suppressed a shiver. And she tried to read poetry. She tried to talk about the things that interested him, but in the end it was apparent to him: 1,500 years might have made her incredible in bed, but she was as shallow as the sun was not and as clever as a can of potatoes. She did not understand him the way Natsumi did and he felt a credible regret.

"Saburo," she whined again, "Like, answer me!" because he still hadn't answered.

They wheeled the stretcher across the glass enclosed bridge to the elevator of the parking garage. A swipe of his fake identifier card was enough to unlock the doors. They trundled the cart into the elevator. Saburo leaned across Mois and punched the button for the topmost floor - the roof parking lot - and carefully navigated to the other side of the stretcher. He knew he had to answer the question.

"Saburo..." she started, again, just as he cleared his throat.

"What were you going to say?" he asked.

"No, no, first you." she protested. She looked vulnerable, frightened at what he might say. She was sizing him up, was he brave enough or was he a coward. Would he say...

"You're great in bed Mois. And I love to fuck you, but that's it." there, he'd said it. He breathed a sigh of relief. He expected her to be aghast at his words as he almost was. "We don't have a whole hell of a lot in common other than sex."

"I thought so too. And I don't care." She went around the stretcher and Natsumi. She grabbed him by the low collar of the lab coat and pulled herself against him. "I've done too much to have you. I want you..." and she sank to her knees and look up at him. "to come home to Angol with me. Please, as they say, come?"

The door opened, but she had divided his pants and was teasing him with her tongue. He looked down at Natsumi's dead face and did not care.

----

"They're doing what?" repeated Aki. Her face was a contortion of terror, confusion, and shock. "They're going to kidnap my little girl?"

"To save her, Mama," corrected Fuyuki. His eyes were wide. He'd expected his mother might be reticent, but he thought maternal instinct would save this, the weakest link in the plan. "To get her better medical care than she could ever have on Earth. She's not going to wake up, Mama. Not in the next 2 hours, Mama. She's not. And you heard the doctor. He cannot do anything. Ours is the only way!"

"No!" shouted Aki. She rose and kicked her chair back simultaneously. She roared, "I'm going to stop them. Where are they now?"

Outside they both heard the octuple cacaphony of the blades of a very large helicopter. It circled the building heading for the roof of the western parking garage. The windows rattled with the frenzied movement of so much air and the blinds shuttered so that the shadows wiggled on the tabletop between Fuyuki and Aki.

"I think you'll be too late," Fuyuki started, but he swallowed his words. His mother had already left the room. Belatedly, he ran after her.

----

Hanene pushed up sharply on the control stick and toed the left pedal and the Boeing swooped from high to near rooftop level while banking slightly. The clearances were perfect as she pulled even with the roof of the City Hospital parking garage. Night had turned to dawn and the reddening sun caught the beating blades and bulbous body of the helicopter. She neatly maneuvered between nearly empty rows and the airbeast settled. The landing gear flexed on the asphalt. She powered down the engines.

Kururu and Keroro were running from the nearby southern lift and soon Mois and Saburo emerged from the entrance to the much further northern lift. The couple were maneuvering a stretcher,  which she assumed bore the unconscious Natsumi, between the rows of parked automobiles. She hopped from her seat and popped the lock on the pilot's door. She trotted around to the port side and hauled with all her strength on the sliding ventral door. The hatch was set on well lubricated casters, but was too heavy, and she was glad when Kururu arrived to "help" even though he added more weight than strength to the process. "Thank you, sugarskin," she grunted. She pushed the button on the control pad and a ramp extruded from the belly and triangled between the ground and now open hatch.

Keroro bustled up the ramp. He folded up two of the passenger seats and retracted a table to create space for the stretcher. He was wiggling his hips and whistling a Keronian battle jenny. He must be happy that a plan of his is finally coming together , she thought spoke to Kururu.

He giggled behind a fist and nodded. Never happens! Shit hits fan in 3... 2...

Hanene was about to laugh when the Sikorsky lifted from below the roof and swooped over the parking garage. The belly was marked with the Nishizawa logo. The voice that shouted. "Stop right there!" through the bullhorn was half familiar and everyone did freeze for a half-second. Kururu and Hanene craned their faces upwards - Hanene's half-lidded eyes were open in surprise and she saw Kururu's lips were twisted in a sardonic I-told-you-so grin. Keroro was behind her at the top of the ramp and he bellowed through cupped hands, exhorting Saburo and Mois to hurry. The couple and the stretcher hit the bottom of the ramp in a rush just as the other helicopter lowered itself to block their own craft's forward escape.

"Okay," Hanene giggled. She sidled over to Kururu. "How did you know we were in the shit?"

Kururu blinked behind his swirly glasses. He spun his index finger around the rim of his headphones to indicate the insanity of that idea. "You call this shit? Haven't you followed the plot? Just watch. Things haven't really started to go wrong yet."

Almost on cue, the elevator from which she and Kururu had lately emerged opened. Aki was within and her eyes were blazing. Her fists were clenched. Her son was close on her heels and trying to restrain her, but she shrugged him off. She advanced on the landed helicopters even as the copilot door of the smaller chopper opened and Momoka tumbled out. Paul emerged at a slightly more sedate pace. The slowly decelerating blades were still touseling their hair as they straightened and advanced on the larger bird.

"Are we in the shit now?" queried Hanene as she watched the two pairs of Pokopenians approaching from opposite directions.

"Not quite yet."

Aki grabbed Keroro by one arm, lifted him from the deck and shook him. "Where do you think you're going with my daughter you slimy bastard?" She demanded.

He was already stammering a reply when Momoka slithered in between Hanene and Kururu and grabbed Keroro's other arm and tugged him away from Aki. "Where do you think you're going with my Daddy's copter?"

Keroro's panicked face flashed between the two females that threatened to separate him like children making a wish over a goose's breastbone the month after Christmas. "Let me think! Let me think!" he screeched. To Aki he said, "She will not survive without our help." To Momoka he added, "And we needed your craft to save her." He then bellowed at the top of his lungs, "Now will you put me down before I bite someone!" His twenty-one, flat-topped molars did not present a credible threat, but both women let go and Keroro landed on his rear end with a thump. He stomped up the ramp and laid one small hand on the metal railing of the stretcher.

"She will die, Aki. This sleep is permanent. If we leave her here; she will never wake up," he explained. "We all knew that with your primitive medicine the situation is hopeless. Even her doctor said so."

"Quiet! I heard this before from my brainwashed son!" Aki growled and made a snatch for the frog's leg, which Keroro avoided by jumping into the air, "She might hear you!"

"She couldn't understand even if she were able to hear." He prompted Kururu to explain and the yellow hacker did. He waxed on for a half minute about his genius in creating the stasis bed and finished with his prediction that the bed had only five hours of power remaining. Keroro cleared his throat, "That gives us five hours to make our rendezvous with our mothership. We will keep Natsumi in stasis until she can be treated and then we will return her to you when there is transport available after our war is over. She shall have the best veterinary care Keron has to offer and you shall think she is no older when she returns. We shall be back again maybe... 200 years. Civil wars rarely last that long."

Fuyuki blanched. "Mama," he started, his voice rising then cracking, "I didn't know. He just said soon."

"Rarely last that long?" Aki mimicked, shaking in rage and frustration. "You might live forever, but we don't." Keroro was shocked. For a moment she sounded like her daughter, "Don't you understand you stupid frog? We only live 70 years. We'll all be dead by the time you come back. She'll be all alone. Her whole world will have changed and she'll still be a child!"

At least Keroro was honest. He blinked and said, "I didn't know this Mama-dono."

"What about now?" whispered Hanene. "Is this where it hits the fan?"

"Almost.." confided Kururu.

"How old did you think I am, Keroro?" Aki seethed, "Three thousand? Four thousand years old? Or Fuyuki? Or Momoka?" She motioned as the aging bodyguard finally arrived, "Or Paul? We die and..." she paused, tears welled and one flowed down her cheek and into the corner of her mouth. She looked up at the gurney, "and sometimes we die young."

"She doesn't have to die; if she comes with us." Keroro exhorted. "Aki," he implored, "I can save her. Let me save your daughter. Let me save my... our friend."

Aki looked torn. What did she really want? What would Natsumi want? Would her daughter wish to live alone with the frogs? With no friends? With no family? She closed her eyes and then opened them, "Listen, Keroro. Let me tell you. I lost Natsumi's father 18 years ago. My father's family chased him away and he promised he'd come back, but he never did. Natsumi is all I have of him - I don't know if he's dead or alive. Fuyuki's father went away on his grand adventure and he promised he'd return, and he hasn't come back and I don't know if he is dead or alive. If you take Natsumi; what guarantee will I have that she'll live?" She pinioned the hacker frog with a stare, "Can you promise me she'll live?"

Kururu giggled, "Ask a doctor. I just push buttons."

Aki ignored the inappropriate levity, "None of you can promise me she'll be back alive, even in 200 years. Can you?" She demanded and fixed each in turn with her blazing eyes, but none would meet her fury. "If she dies, are you going to bring me her corpse to bury?" Keroro bit his lip negatively and she continued, "I can visit my parents' graves. I know they're dead. I have no graves for my childrens' fathers.

"I know what it is to lose, but not really lose, to have someone exist in between alive and dead. I would rather Natsumi live and be happy and grow up and go to college and marry and have grandchildren, but I would rather her be dead than me die not knowing that she was alive and happy.

"I've been through it twice, and I'm not going through it again." She folded her hands across her chest, "And I'll kill you if you try to make me."

Keroro gulped. He looked from Aki, standing, to Natsumi, prone, and back again.

Mois didn't help his situation by saying, "You have been caught, as they say, with your hand in the cookie jar."

Kururu confided to Hanene, "Now the shit has hit."

----

Sneaking Natsumi back into the hospital was no less difficult than sneaking her out had been. Mois and Saburo easily wheeled her back into the elevator, down, across the bridge, up another elevator, down the hall and into her assigned room. Saburo moved her back under the oxygen tent and attached the sensor leads to the plugs that still protruded from under the gauze and tape wound dressings. He leaned in close as though he would kiss her, but instead blew on her hair. He whispered, "I will miss you, Natsumi. You may not have been an excellent girlfriend, but you were an excellent human being. I'm going to Angol with Mois and I'm not coming back." Mois smiled when she heard that and the two left the room arm in arm.

Shortly later a doctor entered the room, noticed Aki's absence, and ignored the empty chair. He examined Natsumi and checked her chart and medication. He pronounced her stable and wrote a note to move her from critical care to a private room downstairs. He met Aki on his egress and explained that Natsumi would be moved and that she could be visited, though he warned that visitors should, if possible, wear masks.

Natsumi was moved and in the new, much sunnier room, and Aki dutifully sat at Natsumi's bedside. She pulled up an uncomfortable plastic chair and waited. The doctor's from Nishizawa corporation belatedly arrived, examined, made clucking noises, shook their heads and left. Maybe they talked to the stoic mother, but Aki could not remember - she had tuned them out. She sat stolidly, with Natsumi's hand clasped in her own, until the the wallclock clicked forward and then back and then decisively forward. The 24 hours was over and Natsumi hadn't moved. Her heart still beat. Her lungs still breathed. Her flesh was a touch cool, but a pulse threaded beneath it, yet for all those vital signs, her daughter might as well be dead. Aki cried and dried her eyes and listlessly wandered out, into the hall.

Kururu was under the makeshift stasis stretcher. He was disassembling the mechanism. Hanene was passing tools to the yellow hacker. Fuyuki and Saburo sat on the floor with a miniature portable chess board between them. Fuyuki was contemplating his next move and staring hard at the chessboard. Saburo was staring hard at Mois, who was slumped on a bench along the opposite wall. Paul and Momoka sat in separate chairs facing each other. Paul was talking into his mobile phone in hushed tones. Momoka was texting busily, but quietly. As Aki exited the room they all stood, or froze, or in Kururu's case, swore, as he unintentionally electrocuted himself.

They looked to Aki. Her face was grave. "I think," she said, "we should all say our goodbyes." Then she lost her composure. Tears streamed down her cheeks and Fuyuki, Saburo and even Paul leaped to her aid and guided her onto a padded bench. Passersby, of which there were a few, looked on with sympathy as son tried to comfort his mother.

No-one noticed the elevator door open. Nor did they notice the red haired man in the silk suit nor the red faced Keronian in the bio-mechanoid who emerged. The Keronian led the approach to the protective little cluster surrounding the grieving mother. He put his hand on Paul's shoulder first. Paul looked over his shoulder, followed the hand, to the wrist, up the sleeve, across the shoulder to Giroro's face and gasped. Hanene became aware of the unfamiliar presence at her back and looked up and her eyes opened wide in shock and she too gasped. She tugged on Kururu's arm. He looked up into the Keronian face atop the shoulders of the manequin and his jaw dropped. His "Ya..ya...ya.." of surprise was what caught everyone's attention, but it was Jeff who broke the tableau and spoke:

"Aki?"

----

Giroro strode from the elevator. Four hospitals and finally we find the right one. I hope... I do not truthfully know what I hope. I hope she will talk to me. I hope she will forgive me. He stopped. He recognized everyone clustered at the midpoint of the hall. The Keronians were all slightly blurry from their NMP fields, but they're my problem. Sir Jeff cannot even see them. He sighed and motioned for Sir Jeff to follow him. His boss had seemed increasingly apprehensive ever since they'd located the correct hospital and now he was rigid as a martinet. He is disciplining himself, though I know not why he would?

Paul was closest and Giroro reached out to the man's shoulder. Paul's reaction was gratifying: complete surprise.

Why is the Keronian Air Patrol here? Giroro wondered. The unfamiliar aquamarine Keronian at his feet was wearing the wide flapped KAP, She had half-lidded eyes and looked bored by the proceedings until she glanced upwards and askance and her eyes flew painfully wide as though she rarely used the muscles to open them.

She knows me. Giroro appraised. Does she know Giroro the entertainer or Giroro the Most Dangerous Man in the Universe? He watched her tug on Kururu's arm and was pleased that he got to issue a curt nod to the stammering hacker. Everyone heard Kururu's half vocalized amazement and soon everyone except Mama Aki was looking at Giroro and in shock.

I shall be silent, and permit one of them to speak first. It will be the boyfriend of my beloved. He always has something to say. Why is he holding Mois' hand? He smiled a predatory smile in the direction of the poet and Saburo, his amazement quickly under control, grinned back, he opened his mouth to speak, but he was pre-empted by a choked call at Giroro's back.

"Aki?"

Giroro's head whipped in the direction of the voice. The voice was Sir Jeff's, but an half-octave too high. How does he know this Pokopenian's name? I have never mentioned it.

"Aki." Sir Jeff repeated.

The woman's head rose from her palms. Her face was soaked with tears. She sniffled. Her hair was disarrayed with lack of care and her eyes were bloodshot with lack of sleep. Her eyeglasses were long since abandoned. She rose unsteadily and nudged Hanene and Kururu aside. She was breathing through her slightly parted lips. She slithered passed Paul and ignored Giroro. At last she could see the speaker. Her head tilted in puzzlement, then her face shone with wonderment. She seemed to have problems finding her voice, then she stammered, "J-j-j-j-eff?"

He opened his arms and she rushed into them. He embraced her and rocked her. She cried into the chest of his starched business suit. "Aki," he said just so softly that only Aki and Giroro could hear, "You haven't changed a bit - 18 years and you haven't changed a bit."

"I'm a mess," she stammered. She looked up into his eyes and he looked down into her. She wiped her eyes and sniffled. "Did you hear? Is that why you came? Jeff, you... you have a daughter. Her name is Natsumi."

"I know," he said. He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead as though she were a child. "I suspected for a very long time, but I know now. And I know she's dying. And I know my friend Giroro is her friend. And I know she loves him. And I know we have a lot to talk about. Let's walk."

And strangely Aki let herself be led away. She leaned against the taller man and he had his arm around her. He was looking into Aki's eyes in a way Giroro had never seen.

"Okay-y-y-y," said the unknown Keronian. "That was a surprise. I didn't see that coming, but come to think of it, the clues were all over the place."

Giroro coughed as politely as he could muster and then coughed more loudly. When he finally had their attention he dialed his best commanding threat voice, "Tell me what is happening to Natsumi, now."

Keroro explained, seriously, without a single hip wiggle or hand motion. He told of the dinner and of the police call. He told of the mad race to the hospital and of the rescue attempt. He explained what the doctor had said. He shrugged when he said "Natsumi-dono won't wake up. She might never wake up and now, probably even our doctors would not be able to save her. If only we had not packed the medical bay, we could have gotten her there in time; the nanites might have helped."

Giroro was fighting back his tears and his rage simultaneously. He turned away from the group and stalked to an abutment in the wall. He leaned his shoulder into it to think. They are so inept, he thought. They could not execute a simple abduction without losing their nerve. I would have taken the whole family as samples, and be damned clearing it later. There are so many "if only". If only I'd left New York sooner. If only I had never left Osaka. If only I had arrived to pick apart that ridiculous kidnap invasion. If only Mois had not packed all the medical equipment including the... the... "Wait!" he reeled and commanded.

He reached into subspace and removed his first aid kit and then from within the precious phial of nanites. He held the phial up for all to see. "Might these help?"

It was Kururu who thought the three word proposal through and nodded, but Keroro who said, "They just might. You never know."

"There's not enough to heal her brain completely," Kururu observed. "They might give her a few more years. We will never know. We will be gone before they can do their job."

"A few more years would be worth it," gulped Giroro. He handed the phial to the hacker. "Do it."

----

He floated above the metal platform of a perch he'd not visited in many years even before he had died. The breeze was light and springlike and he was pale in the sunlight, more invisible than he would have been cloaked in the NMP field. He watched the female ninja who crouched on the edge of the platform. Far below her, nearly in the shadow of high-tension tower, the seventh year girls of Kisshou Middle School were running 100 meter sprints. I don't know why I followed her here after the quarry was taken. I don't know why she came here, of all places?

"I used to be one of them, ghost, carefree and running without purpose only because someone commanded me to run." her expression was undetectable behind the mask, but the voice held not a tinge of regret. She was merely stating fact. "I have not changed that much." She stood and regarded the spirit floating in the shadow of a girder. "Our quarry is taken and I promise you he will see justice, either long imprisoned or at the point of my blade."

He nodded to her and bowed his thank you. His ectoplasmic eyes spoke gravely, We make a very good team. Perhaps I should not be in such urgency to join my ancestors? Perhaps we can work together?

The ninja shook her head. She turned from him and her leather gloved hands lifted to her face. She unsnapped the chin strap of her mask and then unsnapped the mask from the hood. She flipped the mask up and off and then dropped it to the deck. Facing away from him she intoned, "I am Yorushimo. I am Blizzard. I am cold death, silent to any who meet my steel. I am at the command of Bayo Nishizawa, and I was to find the attacker of Natsumi Hinata." She turned back to him and had he breath, he would have gasped. She continued, "You once called me Koyuki Azumaya, your Little Flurry, but now I am grown and I work alone."

She retrieved her metalmesh mask and donned the facegear. Her expression safely hidden, her voice cracked "Goodbye. What is your love and what was mine has been avenged."

And she leaped away.

----

Giroro entered the hospital room. He sat his manequin on the plastic chair and listened to the legs creak against the floor. He unfastened his shirt and thumped the required three times on the chest. He stretched his legs onto the cantilevered chest and hopped gently onto the bed. He crept cautiously up the frame over the hillocks of blankets and sheet. Giroro looked down at the unnaturally pale and still visage of Natsumi. The saline solution from the intravenous catheter bag dripped, the heart monitor beeped, in the hallway the speakers lulled a soft song, but he heard none of it.

He'd almost failed. Again. "But not this time," he muttered through a victorious grin. The ampule of nanites was clutched in his hand and he pressed the needle to the intravenous line leading to Natsumi's arm. The silvery seeming-fluid squirted into the vinyl tubing and the army of small robots dispersed into the flow and began their microscopic march into Natsumi's body. Hopefully they will be enough to heal my Natsumi , he thought.

I have no right to call Natsumi mine. Shaking with suppressed emotion, the tears leaked, though he fought them. I am so selfish! To have failed her, to have been gone from her life for so long only to come back now. All I want is for her to wake up. To see me here, and to forgive me before I go. All I can offer is possible life, and a taste of something we'd so long ago dreamed about, that now, we might not ever have. "Please, accept this gift Natsumi."

He did his best to warm her hand, but it was limp and icy. He reached up. His hand quivered as he touched her cheek, reverently. His tears dripped onto her face. She was so cold. Her lips were as pale as the rest of her. He kissed the waxy lips softly and looked for a response, but there was none. He sat crosslegged and stroked her cheek and listened to her irregular breathing and cried. He sat there for minutes, or maybe even hours, until Keroro poked his head in the door.

"Giroro, its time to go." he piped, "The mothership won't wait forever."

Giroro gave his love a final kiss, reinserted himself into his manequin. "I will come back for you, I don't care how long it takes. I will kiss my summer sun again," He squeezed her hand and parted.

He gritted his teeth, slitted his eyes, forced himself to his bio-mechanoid feet, and left. Perhaps she heard me, he thought. Perhaps she was listening.

----

Deep in Natsumi's brains the nanomolecular robots frolicked. They worked. They cleaned. They repaired. They powered themselves on the nutrition and oxygen in her blood. They repaired and resuscitated damaged neurons and restored synaptic potentials. They restored memory and imagination....

"Wait! Giroro, wait!"

Giroro tried to ignore the pleading, tried to harden his hearts. If there was no goodbye, leaving wouldn't be as painful. But she had run out with nothing on but a set of pajamas, and now she was running into the water, wading in as far as she could before she dove in to swim. He slowed subconsciously, and she caught up to his skimmer, grasped of rim and stood on the sandbar in waist-deep water.

"Natsumi!" Giroro barked harshly, hating himself for doing so. "The ship will leave without me. I have no time for this!"

"You will make time," Natsumi insisted.

Giroro opened his mouth for a retort, but she had just snaked her hand behind his head and jerked him forward. He found his lips not filled with angry words, but something he had longed for for many years. She with the inexperience of a girl never kissed, had mashed her face into his, but the pressure and contact was just enough that it had the effect she wanted -- he was silent. She pulled away, slowly, searching his face for any sign of rejection, hope, something--but his eyes were wide and blank, seeming to stare coldly through her. Natsumi dropped her eyes, heart constricting. He really hasn't forgiven me. She began to pull away.

It began to rain intermittently. The drops were surprisingly warm.

A small, shaking hand cupped her cheek and made her look at him. His countenance now relayed everything that she needed -- awe, relief, and yes, a burning desire that had waited years to be satisfied. Without words they pulled the other into a real kiss: slow, tender, testing and tasting. Natsumi marveled at the texture and firmness of the frog's lips, and that tongue was like nothing she ever imagined! She could tell that, if he did not restrain himself as she knew he was, the appendage would have easily gone down her throat.

Giroro greedily consumed the taste he had for so long desired: the lips he knew would be soft as featherdown. He was lost. How could he leave now? With this - his Natsumi finally, at long last, forgiving him and accepting him! The breathing through his nose became sharper as he attempted to savor this wonderful heavenly victory for as long as he could.

When finally they parted, resting upon each others' foreheads and panting harshly, Giroro stroked the endearing cheek of his Natsumi. "I will come back for you," he husked, a low, gruff tone filled with a vehemence that she had not heard before from him. "I don't care how long it takes. I will kiss my summer sun again."

Natsumi nodded against him. She smiled, and unexpectedly, began to sing lowly. "Deep in my soul...love so strong...it takes control...now we both know...the secrets bare...the feelings show..."

A song he had never forgotten. He joined her. "Driven far apart...I make a wish...on a shooting star... there will come a day..somewhere far away...in your arms I'll stay, my only love..."

And together: "even though you're gone, love will still live on...the feeling is so strong..."

"My only love," Natsumi began, tears streamed down her cheeks.

"My only love," Giroro finished, and wiped them away tenderly.

The hovering ship let out a loud blare.

Giroro held her hand as he floated away, until her questing fingers slipped from his grasp.

It wasn't until the ship was nothing more than another of the myriad pinpoints in the night sky that Natsumi shivered and realized just how cold the lake's water was. With a final look into the night sky and a single tear winding down her cheek, she turned and waded towards the shore, into a blinding light that seemed somehow warm and comforting.

In the hospital room, in the light of the smouldering afternoon sun, a shadow crossed the still lips of the red-haired girl. It might have been a smile, but her mother, asleep in the plastic chair, did not see it.