Ah My Goddess Fan Fiction ❯ Trial By Tenderness ❯ Part 16 - Intersects ( Chapter 16 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Part 16: Intersects



Flashes of color punctuated the river of pavement as the speeding racers swept by the grandstand. Accented by the fognoir background of the night sky, the racetrack seemed to glow sinuously under the illumining track lights. Pixels of crafted illusory vapors teemed brilliantly, their shine casting a moving rainbow of images on the arcade driver's face.
"If this wasn't so damned serious, I'd really enjoy these computer graphics," Megumi mused for the hundredth time. A voice in her head responded with feigned annoyance.
"<Yeah, since when did *you* ever play any computer games? I seem to remember a tomboy who was interested in baseball, volleyball, bicycling and outdoors stuff! She didn't have time to play Nintendo with her older brother--so, sadly, he had to play video games all by himself.>"
"Keiichi!" she whined derisively as he pulled her covers. The friendly tit-for-tat between the two siblings had arisen out of a need to keep Megumi alert during the race, now in its second day. Megumi smiled; she was still up on Keiichi by a two to one margin.
"He may be older, but *I'm* sharper," she thought.
"<I heard that!>"
Megumi looked at the lap counter on the display for her car. She had driven roughly half of the 2000 laps. Every 200 laps or so, she would pull into the pit stop for a brief reprieve of 5 minutes. Belldandy and the others would give her food, drinks and backrubs during these times...if she wasn't dashing off to the bathroom. Since Keiichi had been coaching her along the way, his voice was comforting to her when she was on the edge of panic. As a seasoned race driver, Keiichi was very familiar with what she was encountering on the racetrack. Besides, due to Mara's interference, he was actually in the driver's seat inside the video game car she was playing.
"<Megumi, how are you holding up? It must be at least 20 hours since you first started,>" a worried voice inquired in Megumi's mind.
"<Ah...I'm okay! Urd's 'pep lozenge' is working wonders.>" she replied. Megumi had noticed over the past two hours that Keiichi had been talking to her less and less; his mental voice seemed to drag out the words.
"<Sis...I'm completely exhausted. I didn't have the benefit of whatever Urd gave you. I've been with you for the first half of the race, but now I really, really need to crash and get some sleep.>" his voice admitted with a telltale reluctance.
"<What!>" Megumi shouted, her mental voice filled with a ruffle of anxiety.
"<You're going to leave me *alone* for this race? No...please don't say that's what's going to happen!>" she thought.
Keiichi explained that, despite being a prisoner of the arcade game, he was mysteriously subject to human physical laws. Even though Megumi was controlling his racecar via the arcade game, he would need to doze off for a while, having been awake for over a day.
Silence.
Megumi could swear that she heard snoring in her mind a half-hour or so later. Then a sound like a needle scratching across an old record jarred her senses.
"Ha ha ha ha! You're only halfway through the race, Megumi! The worst part is yet to come. The other drivers will be getting tired...and guess what that means?" Mara shouted obtrusively over the arcade game's speakers.
"What, Mara," Megumi said in a nonplused voice.
"They're going to start driving sloppy...just like drunken drivers. That will make this race *really* interesting, don't ya think! Lot's of chances for a crash to happen! Lucky you, if you crash, you won't get hurt... But Keiichi on the other hand won't be so lucky..."
"Mara, *shut up*! I know that already!" Megumi yelled, angry at Mara's taunting.

* * * * * * * *

Belldandy heard Megumi's clarion-like shout of anger above the cacophony of arcade game sounds. She and Urd had been keeping watch over Megumi; attending to her comfort so that this feat of endurance would have minimal discomfort. Mercifully, there were times when she wasn't dwelling upon the high stakes of this race: Keiichi's life depended on Megumi's video game driving skills. Now, Belldandy was brutally reminded of the price of failure encouched in Mara's challenge. Urd looked at her younger sister with a knitted expression of concern as Bell's face was screwed tight with blunt anxiety.
Skuld also noticed her sister's face draw into a worried mien and tried to comfort her.
"If I was Bell, I would be freaking out the *entire* time. Elder Sister sure is pretty cool in dealing with this!" Skuld thought, amazed at her older sister's composure. She hoped that Belldandy would responded favorably to bepraisement...even if the source was her younger sis.
Urd chimed in with ebullient optimism. Cevn looked on with wonder as the two sisters pooled their energies to keep Belldandy from sinking into a morass of despair.
"All for one and one for all," he quoted the adage in his mind.
"Somehow, Mara will pay for this," was all he could say to them. He felt so superfluous to the situation, not to mention that he was exhausted after being up over 30 hours. He thought about using the excuse of exhaustion to justify appealing to Urd for one of her 'super speed' pills.
"Now, *that* was a flash of insanity!" he realized as he quickly clenched his fists to wake himself. The drug addict from his past wanted those pills; once more he had to challenge the urges that sometimes came in high stress situations. Rarely did he want to use any drugs over the past ten or so years, but since he had moved to Japan and Mara had gotten him loaded against his will...the insanity sometimes returned like a mental sharkhook.
"Cevn, it's okay!" Urd said to him, sensing his inner turmoil. She smiled to herself when he shot her a look of suspicion and surprise.
"He has no idea how well I know what's on his mind, or how well I know who he is," she chuckled to herself.

* * * * * * * *

Megumi felt washes of anxiety fade in and out as she raced on, unaided by Keiichi's support and advice. She had surrendered all perspective of time much earlier. It simply wasn't important. *This* moment was what mattered. She imagined that this race must be what the Christian Hell was like...an eternity of doing nothing interesting. An eternity of being stressed out. But this task transcended 'interesting' with its life and death implications.
"No...I can't let my mind wander! Need to focus on the race!" she confronted herself, forcing her attention back on the racetrack, biting her lip in determination.

* * * * * * * *

Sunrise.
Sunset.
Cevn was almost dizzy from lack of sleep. A couple of minutes earlier, he dropped a glass of juice he was getting for Megumi.
"That's it! You're going to sleep!" Skuld shouted in a take-charge voice. Urd just shook her head at him with open respect while Belldandy smiled gratefully.
"Cevn, you've done everything you can. Listen to Skuld and get some rest. You've been up almost 40 hours. I won't be upset with you if you do," Belldandy said soothingly. Cevn smiled a tired grin and leaned back against the arcade machine. In a few moments, he slumped into sleep while seated on the floor.

* * * * * * * *

"Megumi, how much longer?" Skuld asked, her rivalry with Megumi temporarily forgiven and forgotten. She had to admit a grudging admiration for Megumi.
Of all the mortals she knew, Megumi was the one mortal that rubbed her the wrong way. *Extremely* the wrong way. Their relationship had been tempestuous at times, especially when Megumi defended her brother's relationship with Belldandy.
"It wasn't just what she did, it's who she *is*!" Skuld had rationalized back them. She didn't understand how it could be that she took an instant dislike to Megumi. She felt the hair on her neck hackle from the first moment she set eyes on the mortal girl. Later, Belldandy had explained that her dislike of Megumi might stem from the possibility that she shared some innate personal qualities with Megumi. Skuld initially reacted to *that* statement with disbelief and disgust...but she later admitted that her sister was right, as usual. Big Sister Urd also pointed out some similarities between her and Megumi; engineering talent, being the youngest in the family and having a love/hate relationship with Keiichi.
Megumi was leaning forward in the arcade game 'cockpit', almost resting her chin on the wheel, rapt with attention to what was happening on the video screen. She'd narrowly escaped several crashes on the racetrack. Every time the machine made a crashing sound, Belldandy jumped to her feet and shook like a leaf until Megumi assured her that it was some other car that crashed. But several times, Megumi had brushed lightly against the retaining wall of the racetrack.
Skuld felt her nervestrings stretch taunt with each screeching metallic crashing sound. The last near-crash, she had started to chastise Megumi when Urd prudently put a hand over her mouth.
"Mon't mou thare phill y sphifter's phoyfrien!"

* * * * * * * *

Megumi remembered something Cevn had said about how some people just are waiting around to waste away...and then they forget how 'what started their lives' was all about. It was a miracle that she had not crashed her car. Other racecars were weaving like dragonflies in a late-spring storm; in and out of the racetrack, creating additional obstacles for her.
"<Megumi, you only have another 400 laps!>" an excited voice shouted in her head. Keiichi was awake and with her again! Megumi didn't want to tell Keiichi the terrible truth...that she herself was starting to feel gripped with exhaustion.

* * * * * * * *

Another 150 laps. Another hour and a half.
Megumi almost fell asleep at the wheel when she was jarred awake by a loud steelrip rending sound as she rode the retaining wall again. Her head snapped back as she fought to control her video game racecar, which rebounded off the wall at 310 kph. In the arcade game monitor, her car was dizzily spinning in circles; she gravely struggled to keep her racer from overturning. It all happened so fast...she flinched...and then she saw her car slide to a stop on the grass on the inside of the track. She marveled over the fact that she didn't crash or get blasted by another racer, just as an explosion of sonance shattered her thoughts of gratitude.
Belldandy had kept her eyes anxiously glued to Megumi's every move in the cockpit of the video game. Somehow, Mara had tweaked the game so no one except Megumi could see anything on the video game screen. As she saw Megumi react in panic, rapidly whipping the steering wheel hand-over-hand, Belldandy screamed with sheer terror. She held her breath as Megumi fought tenaciously with the invisible situation of the race. After a couple of seconds, Megumi stopped driving and released the wheel, slumping back into the chair of the arcade game.
"She's stopped driving!" Belldandy thought, reacting to this with a horrible feeling of loss that welled up inside of her heart.
It was over. Keiichi was dead despite their best efforts.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! KEIIICHIII!" she screamed in anguish.
In an instant, Belldandy had literally blasted everything in sight with her ear-splitting yell. Skuld and Urd both covered their ears a fraction of a second too late. Cevn literally jumped two feet in the air, startled awake by the wellcrash of sound. Objects in the living room flew off the wall and furniture was overturned, as if caught in a blashing windgust. Windows shattered and glass flew everywhere. One of the ceiling beams dislodged and fell down on the floor with a crash that made everyone start, while all the paper in the shoji doors blasted out.
Megumi was jarred back into reality as a stream of glass shards sprayed her in the face. She had closed her eyes in the nick of time; the stinging sensation on her cheeks really hurt.
"Oh God! Owwww!" she exclaimed in pain.
"What happened? My face feels like it's all cut up with glass," she said aloud in a panic. Visions of a scarred face passed through her mind; her mother's cautioning voice repeating in her mind..."A woman's fortune is her face."
"No...I'm not going *there*!" she challenged herself.
She couldn't hear her own voice, Megumi noted reluctantly. The glass that covered the videogame screen had shattered and sprayed all over her. The monitor behind the glass...her only view on the race...was now distorted by several cracks. These created a fractured, surreal graphic display. Her hearing was gone, everything sounded tinny and she felt blood running out of her nose.
Urd and Skuld looked at their sister, speechless in the face of her greatest loss. Belldandy had put her soul into her yell of pain--her energy was depleted. She collapsed in an unconscious heap on the floor, totally drained.
Urd looked at Skuld. Skuld's face had the most helpless expression she had ever seen. Her dun-brown eyes were red with distraught grief as she blinked back tears. Her whole body seemed to quiver as she was emotionally overwhelmed by Bell's tragic loss...and Keiichi's death.
Skuld looked at Urd through tear-blotted eyes. Urd's emerald eyes were rimmed with blazing red rage and hurt. Skuld knew that Big Sister Urd was going ballistic with barely controlled anger; she felt her own fists clenching tight at her sides with wrath.
"I'm going to *kill* her!" Urd stammered in absolute fury.

* * * * * * * *

"Bwahhh hooo heeh!" Mara shouted with glee as she saw Megumi's car spinning out of control on the racetrack. She jumped up and down with fervent excitement.
"This is it!" she yelled in triumph.
Her ultimate revenge on Belldandy and Megumi was unfolding right in front of her eyes! She saw Megumi's N.I.T. car whirling madly out of control in the midst of the racetrack as several cars sped by her.
"Keiichi's as good as dead once one of those cars hits them. He'll get creamed; there won't be enough of him to scrape from the metal wreck to fill a sake bottle with!" she thought with impending anticipation. From her vantagepoint in the grandstand, she waited for the inevitable collision with sheer joy.
All eleven cars that remained in the race drove past the spinning car without hitting it.
Mara watched in utter disgust as Megumi's careening car slowed down on its own and finally spun safely to a halt on the grass in the edge of the track, untouched except for a flat tire and crunched metal all up the passenger side of the racer.
"You... ignorant churls! You idiots! How could you not hit a car spinning in the middle of the racetrack, you morons! This is utterly, disgustingly unbelievable! Bless, bless BLESS!" she screamed at the outrage.
She was so angry that she started mock-pulling her hair and rending her leather clothes.
Suddenly, the entire racetrack world seemed to shudder as if it was caught in an earthquake combined with the sound of a hundred roaring jets exploded overhead. Mara covered her ears in surprise, as everything in view shook wildly. She extended into her wraith form and joined with the machine.
The video game viewscreen was all screwed up. Belldandy was unconscious on the floor. In an instant, Mara intuited what had happened: Belldandy had screamed, damaging the display that Megumi needed to use for the race!
"Irony of ironies, there still may be a chance!" Mara exclaimed to herself, suddenly happy despite the fact that she saw the repair crew at work on Megumi's racer, making her car roadworthy again.
"She'll have to continue the Demon Rally with a messed-up view screen. There's no way she can finish the race safely now!" she shouted. She grinned at the delicious irony that Belldandy's confused scream would actually bring about Keiichi's demise.
"Ha ha ha ha ha! It's a great time to be a Demoness!"

* * * * * * * *

Megumi recovered herself enough to see that she was still on the racetrack. A big crack down the center of her video game screen created a field of distortion. She looked at the lap meter and saw that she had a little over 200 laps remaining. She couldn't hear a thing but hazy ringing in her ears.
"<Megumi...Megumi?>" the voice in her head started.
"<Keiichi! You're okay!>" she thought with relief.
"<I don't know about that...I just saw my whole life flash before my eyes! We nearly got killed...well, *I* nearly got killed! What the hell happened?>" he asked desperately.
"<Tired.>"

* * * * * * * *

"Hey Megumi, you *have* to finish the race! Once they repair your car, you'll have to get back out there and drive. It's only a matter of time until you get in a crash now...better wish your brother a goodbye!" Mara taunted with a snakepit dismissal.

"**Loser!**" the malevolent voice shouted, filled with hatred.

Urd was seething with dour rage as Mara's voice came over the speakers. It was scratchy, as Bell's scream had blown the speaker cones.
Megumi didn't react...which caused Skuld to react.
"Megumi! You need to get back into the race! Didn't you hear her?" Megumi ignored her. Skuld reached out and pushed her hand against Megumi's shoulder to try and get her attention.
"Don't ignore me *now*, Megumi!" she yelled desperately.
Urd was dazed by the revelation that Keiichi was still alive: that the apparently fatal nature of the crash they all has assumed...had actually not occurred. She felt enormous relief and joy as Skuld was trying to encourage Megumi to start back into the race. Cevn tapped her on the shoulder and pointed towards his ears.
"Yes, I can see that you got two of 'em! Why are you bothering me with charades right in the middle of this?" She watched Cevn for a reaction...he didn't seem to hear her. Which irritated her totally.
"Why can't you *listen* for a change?" she said, stabbing her finger at him. The realization of what he was trying to convey suddenly dawned on her.
"Skuld! Cevn's deaf from Bell's scream! Megumi must also be deaf...Bell's scream must have screwed up their little mortal ears!"
Megumi gave a start as Skuld suddenly pushed her shoulder. Her eyes were glued to the screen as the video-game-Tamiya shouted dear encouragement while the N.I.T. Motor Club members quickly fixed her racecar.
"Well, actually, just their replicas in Mara's insane arcade race game," she thought in a detached mindset. Once more, she was thankful that Belldandy had 'personalized' her pit stop team by recreating her N.I.T. Motor Club teammates.
She watched Skuld mouth some words to her.
"I can't hear a thing she's saying! I must have lost my hearing totally!" she noticed. Urd came up to her and pointed at her ears, then made a criss-cross motion. Megumi nodded at the eldest Goddess.
To add to her confusion, Keiichi's voice was rattling off in her head. He was desperate to know what had happened and profusely thanking her for not getting him killed.
A cracked-in-three-places Tamiya gave her the thumbs-up and she slowly regained the racetrack.

* * * * * * * *

"This is great...Megumi's deaf from Belldandy's yell. Belldandy, who is the only one of us with any real powers, is out cold on the floor. The damned video game display screen is trashed and Megumi's all cut up. What's more, the house is in a wreck!" Urd summarized their situation grimly.
"What else could go wrong?"
Ten minutes later, Megumi fell asleep at the wheel.

* * * * * * * *

"<MEGUMI! WAKE UP!!!>" a worried Keiichi shouted in her mind. She snapped her head back up and noticed that she was careening towards another racer. With a shocked gulp of air, she deftly wheeled her car to the right and nicked the other car as she passed it.
"<That was *way* too close! I thought that stuff that Urd gave you was supposed to keep you awake long enough to finish the race,>" her older brother's voice sounded off. Megumi couldn't hear her own speech, but she could hear her own thoughts.
"<Keiichi, I thought so true...I mean too. God, I am so tired! I just wanna go to soon sleep.>" She looked at the video game monitor...it was just like looking through a cracked windshield in the rain.
"This ish nooo good. I can barely sheen a thiiing!" she thought as Mara's laughter echoed through her head. Her thoughts were blurring with the rapid onset of fatigue.
"<Megumi, to your right again!>" Keiichi shouted in her mind. She swerved to miss another car.
Slap!

*SLAP!*

Megumi felt a little more alert after the second slap. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Skuld get ready to deliver a third blow.
"Thanks Skuld! I'm more awake now! I'm going to finish this thing!" she said, trying to manage a smile at the young Goddess.
"That's the spirit, sis," she mentally heard Keiichi say.
Urd patted Skuld on the head for her quick thinking. Skuld smiled a brilliant grin at her oldest sister that conveyed "look what I did all on my own!"
Skuld had taken matters into her own hands and had slapped Megumi awake. Again, Urd was genuinely impressed with Skuld. Now it was up to Kami-sama and the Ultimate Force.
20 more laps.

* * * * * * * *

"Gimme that helmet! It's time for some demolition derby!"
Mara's patience was stretched to the limit. One more time, she had decided that rules were made to be broken. Besides, what could Belldandy do? The little airhead Goddess was all sprawled out on the floor after wasting all of her energy.
"That was a total Urd move, Belldandy,...screaming like that without even thinking to see if Keiichi was okay," she said with a smile as she climbed in a racer with red flames along its side. She ran her tongue over her sharp canine fangs in anticipation.
"I'm gonna run that little bitch off the road!" she said with determination as she floored the accelerator.

* * * * * * * *

"<SHIT!>"
"<Wha now? Thish ish beginning to be like thath shtupid ol Armageddon movie; one screwup aftanother!>" Megumi said drowsily.
"<Mara's on the track!>" Megumi heard Keiichi exclaim in her mind.
With an effort, Megumi looked all over the track and finally espied a red car gaining on her from behind. The other drivers were all over the track, swerving like Pacman maniacs.
The red car pulled ahead of her and she saw a brief glimpse of Mara as it passed. It settled down into the lane directly in front of her, then slammed on its brakes, trying to force her to rearend it. Megumi peeled to the left and rose high up the grade of the racetrack corner to avoid the collision.
"What is she doing?" Megumi thought angrily. Mara was pissing her off...she was already tired and edgy. This was like mega-PMS!
She looked at the lap monitor: 10 more laps.
Keiichi offered constant encouragement to Megumi as the end of the race approached.
Mara pulled alongside Megumi's racecar on the inside lane and attempted to force it off the track, Ben-Hur style. The rapid-fire banging collisions pushed Megumi towards the retaining wall. With each mini-collision, Megumi became more angry...more alert.
"<Sis! You're in *first* place!>" an incredulous Keiichi yelled in her mind.
Megumi didn't care about that. She knew that Mara would try anything to make her crash in the final few laps of the race.
"Where is she, speaking of the devil?"
Mara had pulled her car to a complete stop at the finish line and slowed wheeled it around to face Megumi.
"I'm going to finish this right here and now!" she yelled as she floored her car, aiming directly at Megumi's oncoming racer.
Megumi's eyes went wide as she saw the red car driving straight at her at 350 kph. Remembering her engineering physics, she realized that a head-on collision at that speed had enough kinetic energy to throw her and Keiichi over 5000 feet in the air! She gripped the wheel so tight that her fingernails cut into her palms.
"<Megumi! Listen to me. Mara is playing 'chicken' with you. Whatever you do, sis, don't slam on your brakes or turn to avoid her!>" Keiichi instructed.
"NO WAY!!!!" Megumi shouted, gripped with disbelief at the suggestion her brother had just made. She thought Keiichi was insane for making such an over-the-top suggestion.
"But...it's *his* life that's on the line," she second-guessed. "He must know what he's saying!" Her mind raced for a nanosecond as she argued with herself. Then she made her decision.
"C'mon Mara! I'm not moving my car a centimeter to either side!" she screamed, rigid with defiance.

* * * * * * * *

Urd and Skuld had nothing to do but wait tensely for the end of the race. They had been keeping Megumi awake with a series of nudges, pokes and pinches.
Skuld noticed that Urd looked downcast. In the past few hours, they all had experienced one emotional flood after another. But she recognized *that* look on Urd's face. It was the same look Urd got when she had been caught red-handed in a lie. A look of total guilt.
"What did you do *this* time, Big Sister?" she asked in an accusatory voice.
"I screwed up, Skuld! Megumi shouldn't be falling asleep at the end of the race. If she gets in an accident because she fell asleep, h..h..how can I face Belldandy knowing it was my fault?" she said, anxiously chewing on a strand of hair.
"Urd, I'm only going to say this once...and never again. It *isn't* your fault! You don't have all of your powers and you only had an hour to mix that formula up. You tried your best."
Urd wanted to chew Skuld out for being sanctimonious...but prudently realized that her younger sister was correct. She breathed a sigh of relief for just a moment. Then Megumi's rage-filled scream shook her towards more important matters.

* * * * * * * *

Mara took aim at Megumi's car. All she had to do was transport herself out of her own 'Red Demon' car at the last second and Keiichi would be instantly crushed as flat as a tincan lid when her car crashed into Megumi's. She extended herself out into the machine...she wanted to see all their expressions as their beloved Keiichi had his mortal flame snuffed out.
Nothing happened.
With a sense of panic, Mara tried to transport herself. She couldn't move. She tried to extend her essence. Nothing. No matter what she did, she couldn't leave the car. Stunned by the sudden loss of her mobility, she became frightened.
"I can't move! The blessed Rules! The Ultimate Force must be doing this to me since I cheated by getting into this car to try and run down Keiichi and Megumi," she thought coldly.
"Bless it all to Yggdrasil!" she snorted, loudly and angrily.
She looked up and saw Megumi coming at her.
"What! She's *not* trying to avoid me! She's driving right at me! That girl's gone crazy! She could actually *hit* me..."

* * * * * * * *

Megumi steeled herself as Mara's car approached. Fighting back her instinct to take flight, she grasped the steering wheel as hard as she could and held it stationary with a do-or-die grip.
Mara's car loomed up on the video screen, rapidly transforming from a small to large image.
"Yiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!" she screamed right before it seemed that her car would collide with Mara's red racecar.
Mara's car pulled away at the last second as Megumi drove straight down the track's straightaway.
One lap to go.
"<Chicken!!!>" she heard in her mind as Keiichi yelled at Mara in triumph.
"<You did it, sis!>" he exclaimed in her head with gratitude. Megumi finished the straightaway and took the turn. She could hear the roaring of the spectators over the video game system.
She felt like her spirit had flown out of her like so much water spilling out of a bucket, she was so drained. So angry at Mara for putting her through this deathtrap of a challenge. She gave voice to her resentment at the female Demon who had once more put her through Hell.
"LOSER!" she yelled at Mara, wherever she was.

*Crash!*

* * * * * * * *

Closer and closer. Mara got a fright when she realized that Megumi wasn't going to move. Megumi's racer loomed large in the windshield...suddenly, quickly.
"She's going to try and hit *me*!" she thought somberly. "This is unbelievable!"
Mara swerved aside at the last moment.
"Bless her, she didn't turn away, that mortal wench!" she cursed. But the sudden shift in direction caused the momentum of her racecar to become unpredictable. Mara flailed at the steering wheel in sheer desperation.
"I don't know how to drive one of these stupid mortal machines!" she shouted in frustration as split-second before her car crashed head-on with the retaining wall.

* * * * * * * *

As they went into the last turn, Megumi saw the crumpled form of a red racecar smashed up against the wall. For a very brief second, she felt sad for Mara. Once more, Mara's impetuosity had caught up with her. Then she heard the excited roar of the crowd as she entered the straightaway. Far ahead, she saw a tiny man on a tower waving a black and white checkered flag.
Whooooshhhh!
Her car flew by the finish line. Megumi grinned to herself as she started to cry.
"I saved him! I saved Keiichi's life!" she thought with total release. As she stopped her car in the Winner's Circle, in the distance she could see Mara being extracted from the other racer and put on a stretcher by a team of medics.
She heard a sobbing in her head.

* * * * * * * *

With a sudden audible "pop!", Keiichi materialized next to the video arcade game, crouched in a seated position like he was driving an invisible car. He fell backwards in a tumble, now that there was no seat under him. His face was soaked with sweat and tears.
Skuld had been chewing her fingernails raw; when she saw Keiichi safe and sound, she collapsed on the floor with joyful relief.
Urd slumped to the floor next to her youngest sister and let out a prolonged gasp, seeing Keiichi back in the flesh, alive. She put an arm around Skuld and side-hugged her.
"Belldandy!" Keiichi shouted with jubilance. His happiness drained away as he saw the crumpled form of his divine girlfriend on the floor. After being subjected to Mara's little 'drama' for the past three days, his raw nerves told him that his girlfriend was dead.
"Oh no! Oh Noooooooooooooo! BELL-CHAN!" he yelled.
"She's okay, lover-boy!" Urd announced with a tired smile as she and Skuld grabbed Keiichi for a hug.
"She thought *you* were dead earlier--then she screamed so loud that it drained all her Goddess Powers. She's going to be okay, she just needs to sleep it off," Urd envisioned the delightful fact that Belldandy will wake up thinking that Keiichi is dead...then find herself in his arms.
"What a totally romantic situation...maybe that'll convince 'em that it's time to make some primo whoopie!" she said to herself.
"How could you think those perverted thoughts at a time like this?" Skuld admonished her. Once more, Urd wondered how it was that Skuld could read her mind when she started thinking in sexual terms. Urd slapped the floor lightly as she realized the cause of Skuld's 'insight'...she had been visualizing a potential event *in the near future*.
Skuld, for her part, was incredulous at Urd's mental cupidity. She saw that certain part of Urd start to quiver, which almost always indicated that her sister was thinking perversely.
Keiichi knelt by Belldandy and heard her gentle breathing. With a flush of relief, he realized that she was all right. Her collapse from expending too much power was a phenomenon that he was familiar with from earlier incidents. He knew that a day would pass and his precious Bell-chan be back to normal, since Yggdrasil had been back on line for a while now. He turned to look at Megumi.
She was sound asleep, slumped in the chair of the arcade game with a smile on her face. Cradled in her arms was a huge ornate golden trophy shaped like a giant wineglass with a car on top...which read "First Place, Indianapolis 5000".
He realized that she had performed a driving feat that was borderline impossible. But with an approaching sense of panic, he noticed the numerous cuts on her face and hands.
"She said that she only had a nosebleed, earlier," he noted fearfully. Her face was pretty well cut up, ribbons of skin matted with slick blood covered her. He looked at the video screen...it was shattered. Glass was all over the place, in her lap, on the floor, in her hair and face.
"My God, what about her face?" he exclaimed with deep concern.
Tears stung his eyes.
"She did the *impossible*...for me! Oh my dear, dear sister..." he said aloud with loving reverence. She had endured over 50 hours of nonstop Formula A race driving. She had fought off fatigue the last several hours with grim obstinacy. She had driven almost half of it without his help or encouragement. And somewhere in the final stretch, she had driven with a faceful of glass. Somehow.
Keiichi was overpowered by an urge to grab Megumi and hug the daylights out of her, but he knew that the best thing was not to disturb her rest. He knew that Belldandy could heal her face, more than likely.
"She's definitely earned it," he said quietly. Everybody in the room was asleep. Skuld and Urd were laying on the floor next to each other, face-to-face in each other's arms, snoring away. Cevn was asleep on the floor next to the arcade game. Keiichi realized that this had been a team effort to support Megumi in her race. Then he saw the living room, which was all smashed up by Belldandy's release of audio energy. It reminded him of the several times it had been wrecked, most recently by Cevn. He saw a stirring out of the corner of his eye.
"We all feel that way about Megumi," Urd said tiredly. "Don't we?" she said to Skuld, elbowing her. Skuld had harbored enmity towards Megumi from the moment she met her; Urd wanted to challenge this attitude that *her* little sister had towards *Keiichi's* little sister.
Skuld scowled at Urd momentarily, angry that she had been awakened. Then she reflected on what Megumi had accomplished today. Skuld had seen Keiichi and Cevn sacrifice their well being in the process of trying to save a loved one or a good friend. Now Megumi had done the same. Skuld begrudged her some respect for this...but then she thought about what Belldandy had said about her and Megumi.
"If she's like me in some ways...?" Skuld said sleepily.
"What if I was in her position and Urd or Bell were in Keiichi's place: would I be able to do what she just did?" she wondered.
Skuld had to admit to herself that she didn't know how she would react...except to do as Megumi did and rise to the occasion. Suddenly she felt sincere respect for her rival.
"Maybe I can get along with her better, like when we went shopping with Cevn," she thought as sleep rushed back up on her.

* * * * * * * *

Belldandy wanted to never wake up, to never climb out from under the blanket that covered her as she lay on her futon.
Like an unending shower of knives, painful memories revisited her, haunting her. Her beloved Keiichi was dead at the hands of Mara's treachery. All she could do was stand by and scream out her trauma.
Her existence was ruined. Forever. She would have to endure the pain of the loss of her one and only love. She wished she could blink herself out of existence. Nothing could take away this much pain. She collapsed into herself emotionally, becoming a cocoon.
No. More. Keiichi.
She slept on and on. Every time a dream faded into wakefulness, she would keep her eyes shut and wait until she fell back asleep. She could hear her sisters rustling about the room, talking in near-silent whispers. What were they feeling? Had Keiichi's funeral been held yet? These painful questions assailed her fragile sanity...and she took comfort in sleep.
Better sleep than encompassing grief.
Eventually, she couldn't keep herself asleep, despite her best effort. Tears immediately came to her closed eyes as a gentle hand stroked her hair and forehead. She never wanted to face reality again. If she had a physical heart, it would have been crushed beyond recognition. Her sobbing deepened as she curled into a fetal position. Memories of her and Keiichi tormented her.
She opened her eyes and gasped with involuntary shock.
"Bell-chan, you're awake," she heard a gentle voice inquiring.

*His* voice!

"KEIICHI!" she said hoarsely. Keiichi's eyes smiled tenderness at her. She shuddered with deep sobs of gratitude.
"I...thought...you...were...dead!" she gasped between sobs.
"Oh Bell....oh my love!" Keiichi said, his eyes tearing up. Urd had briefed him about what had happened. He had kept a bedside vigil for two days, waiting and hoping for the moment she would wake up. When he saw her light azure eyes, he dissolved into her beauty. She was...the most beautiful thing in Kami-sama's creation. Her eyes were so expressive, and the curve of her face highlighted them, framing them with the cast of bountiful love. Once more, he realized that he would move mountains for this woman...this *Goddess*!
Belldandy sat partway up on her futon and grabbed Keiichi tightly, her head pressed against his belly.
"Don't ever leave me...please don't let my love for you die out...I love you so much...I want to spend all eternity with you...oh my dear dear dear Keiichi!" she said as she lightly punched him on the chest with her fisted hands, accenting each word with a light love-punch. Keiichi held her tight, feeling her breath and hot tears warmly upon his chest.
"This is what true love is," he thought to himself, looking up at the ceiling. His heart felt so hot...it threatened to burn right out of his chest. His body, no, even his soul could not contain the love he felt for Belldandy. He kissed her on the top of the head and rocked her as she cried into him. He never, ever, in his wildest imaginings, could have envisioned falling so deeply in love with a woman. A woman! He remembered how his desperate goal as a high school student was simply to get laid. Now, instead, he was deeply, affectionately, companionately in love. Belldandy was a woman, in every sense of the word. She had breathed a new life into the chambers of his being.
They held each other quietly for hours, neither one wanting to let go. No kisses, no stroking or caressing. Just heartbeat to heartbeat. Keiichi could feel her heart pounding in rhythm with his. Several times the shoji door slid open, then closed.
Belldandy didn't want to let go. She felt totally enraptured by Keiichi, her being raimented by his protective embrace. She wanted so badly just to flow into him...to be so close to him that he and she would be indistinguishable.
"This is almost what I think the God's mean by what they call 'Sharing'," she thought. She had never experienced Sharing with any God, but Urd had filled her in on the breathtaking intimacy that accompanied Sharing. She wanted to Share her whole being with Keiichi.
"Hey, you guys, don't forget that there's a big wide wonderful world out here," Urd teased them good-naturedly, finally needing to get something from the sister's bedroom. She had tactfully left the two lovebirds alone for a long time, but now she needed to change into her evening clothes.
They both looked to see Urd standing in the doorway, moved by their wordless expression of love for each other.
"Megumi!" Keiichi remembered.
"Yes...I kept her unconscious...barely. It's as if my powers are almost gone. But it's going to take the power of a full First Class Goddess to undo the injuries to her face!" she said with a wink.
Keiichi remembered that Megumi's face was filled with shattered glass. When they carried her to her bedroom, he could barely look at her. Her angelic face was sliced deeply by glints and shards of glass. Skuld and Urd had picked most of them out, but everyone knew that it would take a miracle for her to recover without major scarring.
Keiichi stood up, then reached down and pulled Belldandy to her feet.
"You're going to be upset, Bell-chan...she's really cut up!" he warned her. Belldandy steeled herself as they walked into Megumi's room. She gasped as she saw Megumi's face. No one had told her about the fact that her scream had caused her injuries.
"What...happened to Megumi?" she stammered.
Urd started to explain and Keiichi interrupted her with a hand.
"I think I need to be the one who tells her, Urd," he said, reluctantly volunteering to break the bad news to Bell.
Belldandy listened as Keiichi explained how her involuntary scream of grief had exploded the arcade game monitor. She felt a strangely numb sensation fill her countenance. Then the grief cascaded in as she realized that she was responsible for Megumi's injuries. Crestfallen, Belldandy stumbled back against the wall. Looking again at Megumi's facial injuries, Belldandy felt a queasy sensation in her stomach. The thought that she had caused *this* made her feel a nauseous guilt. She lowered her head sadly.
"Hey, it's *totally* Mara's fault, not yours, sis!" Urd said. "You only did what anyone would do if the love of their life got taken away. Mara was the architect of this whole screwed up mess in the first place!"
Keiichi could see that Belldandy wasn't buying what Urd was saying. He grabbed both of Belldandy's hands and looked her in the eye.
"You are the kindest, most thoughtful being I know, Bell-chan. I *know* that you wouldn't ever intentionally cause harm to another person. What happened to Megumi was the result of Mara's rage, not by any action of yours. You have to believe what Urd said, Bell-chan! You felt the most painful thing anyone could feel when you thought I was killed by the video game. But it's all over now. And you have the power to set things right. You can heal Megumi. Nobody blames you, Bell!" he said emphatically. She looked at Keiichi with a vulnerable expression.
"You must despise me...doing this to your own sister!" she said in a quiet voice.
"No!" Skuld, Urd and Keiichi all replied loudly.
Belldandy caught her breath and looked at Megumi. She was resting peacefully, but the injuries to her face made her slumber look anything but relaxing.
"She finished the race *in this condition* to save my Keiichi...her brother!" She felt a sense of awe, piggybacking upon a sense of deep respect for Megumi.
Belldandy smiled at Megumi...who would someday be her sister. She felt a flow of almost sisterly affection for this young mortal woman. She encanted:

Shards of glass unveiled/cast away all design
Each injury 'twas assailed/all beauty misalign
What once was cruelly flailed/shall again brightly shine!

From the center of Belldandy's forehead, a gentle blue luminosity formed. Spreading across the room, it settled upon Megumi. Megumi seemed to glow with the aura of the spell, as shards of glass extracted themselves out of her face. Each wound to her face healed, while the glass particles dissolved in midair. Everyone watched, fascinated by the display of divine power.
After several more minutes, a divine rainfall of glittering points of light fell on Megumi, washing away all evidence of any injuries. Each drop of 'lightrain' restored a beauty to Megumi. Keiichi looked at his little sister...she looked even more beautiful than she had before. Megumi's face seemed to radiate with a composed elan; a vigorous loveliness that captured his attention even though she was as still as a statue.
Belldandy smiled privately to herself...her small recompense to Megumi for saving Keiichi's life hadn't gone unnoticed by the only male in the room. In a moment's decision, she felt that it wasn't enough to simply undo the traumatic injuries to Megumi...she went further and gave Megumi a 'boost' of beauty. Her face would look exactly the same, but any mortal who sensed beauty while gazing on Megumi's face would have that perception of beauty intensified threefold. Megumi would be one of the loveliest mortal women in all of Japan.
"It's the least I can do for her," Belldandy thought happily. "This must be what Cevn calls an 'amends'."
Finally, it was over; the weaving particles of glowing rainmist slowly faded into invisibility. Skuld and Urd looked relieved as the newly-healed Megumi slept peacefully on her futon bed.
"Bell, you didn't have to give her *that* much!" Urd whispered into Belldandy's ear. "She'll have to learn ninjitsu from the Ninjettes just to keep the guys away. They'll swarm her like ants on ice cream mochi!"
"Well, I guess I gave her a *little* bit too much!" Belldandy said innocently.
"Yeah, well look at how your boyfriend is reacting," Urd said, nodding towards Keiichi. Keiichi was staring at his younger sister with wide eyes, entranced by her beauty.
"Ohhh, Keiichi!" Urd said with a "yoo-hoo" tone of voice. Keiichi snapped out of his fixed attention on his sister.
"What'd you do to her? I could swear she's twice as beautiful as before...but she still looks the same!"
"It's okay, isn't it, Keiichi? I did the right thing by restoring her beauty. Is it okay that I added some?" Belldandy whispered in his ear.
"You just made my job as her older brother a bit worse, because now I'll have to keep an eye on all the guys that will want to date her. But I suppose I can handle it...after what she did for me."
Skuld had been watching all of this quietly. She still felt some rivalry towards Megumi...but the dislike she previously harbored was gone.
"This is going to be interesting...she's going to be..." she observed. Then Skuld made an intuitive leap.
"Awww NO! This means that there's going to be non-stop guys coming over here chasing *her*!" she wailed, then turned a shade of pinkish-red as she realized that once again, she had spoken her thoughts aloud.
"Yep...and that'll serve to provide you with an education, Skuld. You'll be able to learn some comebacks to use on Tomohisa to keep him on his toes...and interested. Megumi's really sharp, she'll be able to coach you so you can keep your mortal boyfriend in line!" Urd taunted her youngest sister.
"He's *NOT* my boyfriend!" Skuld shouted angrily.
Keiichi and Belldandy shared an expression that said "here we go again!" and wandered off while the two siblings argued.

* * * * * * * *

The smell of burnt cinnamon wafted in the dark orange illuminated room, amidst a strobing green light and a howling wind. The whole effect was harrowing, disconcerting. Flashes of lightning occasionally streaked from ceiling to floor, revealing grotesqueries painted on the wall.
Mara lay in her bedroom in her Earthly lair. Actually, she wasn't lying in a bed...it was what the mortals called a "traction unit". She pushed the trendelenberg button and the back of the bed lifted with a straining whirring sound. She looked down at her body and grimaced. One broken arm, two broken legs and a body cast. She couldn't move a muscle. ParaDemon bots had to feed her and do her routine tasks.
"How could this happen to *me*? TO ME???" she wondered over and over. Normally, she would be fastidiously attending to the design of her lair. A window of blood here, a glowing skullchain there, some Salvador Dali paintings, etc. All the comforts of home.
Instead, here she was...bedridden and groaning with pain. She looked at both legs, each wrapped in a bright red cast, suspended from two hooks at the end of her traction unit.
"Six weeks of this because I flaunted the Rules!" she managed to half-heartedly growl.
The Rules were simple: if a God and a Demon gave their word to one another in a contract, they were bound by the Rules. If one or both broke their word, the Rules would somehow cause the Ultimate Force to wreck a disagreeable consequence upon the infractor. As Mara was the transgressor of the Rules, she had been 'punished' by not being allowed to leave her racecar. When it crashed against the retaining wall, Mara suffered the consequences. The Rules served a simple purpose...to keep any interactions between Gods and Demons on the up-and-up. In one sense, they were the boundary that separated the two realms. Without them, the devious Demons would crush their opponents with perfidy...or the benevolent Gods would smother the Demons with kindness. Thus, the Rules served to prevent open warfare between the divines; by minimizing contact and providing guidelines that both sides understood and respected.
With each perambulation of her thoughts, she waxed angrier at Megumi, Keiichi, the pseudo-Demon Cevn and the three bimbo sisters. She had nearly finished with the decoding and construction of the summoning mandala for Isilblius, the Ultimate Demon. Then she decided to torture Keiichi and Megumi, on a whim. Now the Ultimate Demon project had to be put on hold because of her injuries. She couldn't even play any arcade games. She took a lengthy swig out of the sake bottle by her bed.
Six weeks of immobility.

*Ring*

"Who in Vanagdrasil could that be?" Mara said aloud in an irritated voice. She reached over to pick up the Hotline phone near her traction bed.
"Hello," she said irritably.
"It is I"
"Eeep!" Mara managed to gasp, realizing her mistake.
"Y...yes, your Lord...I mean...my Dark Lord!" There was an angry snort on the other end of the line when she called Him "Lord", the name reserved for His Yggdrasilian counterpart.
"Mara, Demoness First Class, Unlimited, Unrestricted License, attached to the Demon Grief Office. Would you deign to justify why you are incapacitated? What circumstance brought about this...malady of yours?" a low growling voice uttered through the phone.
Mara gulped a deep breath. The Dark Lord hadn't called her in a very long time. Why now? Why would His Evilness call at this time, when she was laid up like this?
"Well, my Dark Lord, I was trying to terminate the life existence of my D.G.O. assignment, Keiichi Morisato. I tortured him by transporting him to a racing simulacrum and made his sister..."
"Stop glossing over the facts with trivialities, Mara!"
Mara suddenly realized that this was not a routine checkup call. She didn't like the sound of His voice. Normally, His voice was seductively evil...but now, His voice was ferally malevolent. Grating with seething anger.
"Well, this stupid mortal that I've been assigned to bring to grief...has *three* blessed Goddesses living with him! Every time I try to cast some havoc in his life, something happens and he gets away. It's like the Ultimate Force somehow has it out for me. I've only been able to secure a very small amount of grief in his life...at great expense to my personal welfare, I might add," Mara said, then covered her mouth with her free hand, realizing too late that she had basically admitted failure.
"Confession noted. How is it that a naive First Class Goddess, a Goddess who is a Sysop with limited Earth Spirit powers and a *child* Goddess assigned as an Earthrealm Trainee with *no* powers whatsoever...how is it possible that they can consistently frustrate your attempts to bestow grief upon one mortal?"
Mara was shaking in her bed by now. The Dark One had her at His mercy. There was nothing she could do now.
"HOW COULD YOU BRING SUCH A LOSS OF FACE TO OUR GRIEF OFFICE! You are one of our best Grief operatives. You have excelled at making the mortal worms miserable for millennia. *I've* even been slightly entertained from time to time by your malevolent creativity in abusing the mortals. But now...*this*!"
"B..but my Dark Lord..." she replied, almost in tears.
"And what is this I hear about you trying to summon Isilblius? You don't even have one-tenth the Demonic skills to accomplish this, Mara. Instead of exercising your grief-attributes to the fullest, you get caught up with this summoning attempt. Instead of devoting your energies to make the human assigned to you miserable! You're almost acting *good*!" He exclaimed in dismay.
Mara let the insult of being called "good" by the Dark One sink in...dimming her spirits even more.
"Name your punishment!"
"Name...my...punishment?" Mara said fearfully. These three words were the worst words a Demon could hear from the Dark Lord. It meant that she was to receive discipline and remorse. From time immemorial, when a Demon screwed up, the Dark Lord would offer her or him the chance to name their own punishment. One never knew if the punishment that the Dark One had in mind was worse than the punishment one would volunteer for. In almost all cases, Demons undergoing discipline choose their own punishment, believing that this was the lighter sentence--the lesser of two evils.
"I've been punished *enough*, don't You think? I've been utterly humiliated by a mortal girl and I'm going to be in traction for *six* blessed weeks because I defied the Rules! Give me a break!" Mara said angrily, eschewing any talk of naming her own punishment.
"Hmmmm. I admire your rageful spite, Mara. Therefore, in consideration of this...and your past record of Evil...I will be lenient. We need the power that you possess...elsewhere. It is apparent that you have become very inefficient with its usage. Therefore, I hereby demote you to Demoness Second Class, Limited, Restricted License, until further notice."
"What?!" Mara said, shocked by His pronounced sentence.
"Mara, strive to be more hateful and more malign. This call ends now."
Mara slammed the phone down after the click on the other end of the line. In a stunned moment, she realized that she had gotten off lightly. He could have busted her all the way to Fourth Class, Nonpower License. Suddenly, she pulled hard and tore the phone out of the wall. Reeling it in by the cord, she used her one uninjured arm to dash it against the wall, where it rebounded and hit her foot.
"OWWWH!" she shrieked in pain.
"Argh....why me?"
As the stars in her vision caused by the deep pain in her foot cleared, she saw an unsavory image in her mind. Her imagination revealed Urd...laughing at her.
"Grrrrrrrreeeyaaaahhh!"

* * * * * * * *

I got back from another meeting with Dr. Kintaro and my weekly therapy session with Dr. Ogawa. Everybody was sitting at the dining room table, which was covered with several okonomiyaki. I let out a gasp as I saw Megumi. She was *so* beautiful! I had never noticed before. I knew that she was beautiful in a pert sort of way...but I couldn't keep my eyes off of her. She looked up at me with her light brown eyes and I felt drawn to her. Not sexually, but I was fancifully struck by her loveliness. Then again...she looked *really* sexy as I found myself reluctantly admitting.
She looked at me with a funny expression.
"Cevn, are you all right?" She stared at me staring at her.
"E..er, Megumi, did you do something different with your hair...you look soooo..." I tried to explain, stutterblushed.

*Pap!*

Urd had slapped me in the back of my head with a rolled up newspaper.
"Some kind of 'older brother' you are! Can't keep your eyes off of your 'adopted younger sister', I see. No wonder you wanted to 'adopt' her...now you're true motives are apparent for all to see! Pervert!" she said with disgust.
I gathered a response betwixt waves of shock. Keiichi quickly grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the dining room. I heard someone say, "Urd that's not fair!" as Keiichi hauled me out onto the front porch.
"Cevn, don't worry! While you were gone, Belldandy fixed Megumi's face up with an incantation."
"She must have done much more than that. I..I just couldn't keep my eyes off of her," I said nervously. Keiichi smiled at me and nodded his head.
"Me neither at first. Bell-chan decided to reward her for saving me, so she somehow made Megumi three times as beautiful as before."
"God, no wonder I couldn't stop gawking at her. No offense, but she struck me as beautiful when I first saw her...now, she's going to be a mankiller!" I observed. Keiichi frowned at this.
"Yeah, tell me about it! This means that *I'm* going to have to fight off all sorts of guys who'll get obsessed about her. And since you're her 'adopted older brother', guess what you'll be doing?"
"Actually, I think you don't have to worry...*Genji* is the one who has to worry. He'll freak out when he sees her!"
We both laughed at the strange twist of fate. Megumi, the only mortal female in the house, was now more attractive than 100 per cent of the women in Japan. Idol singers, models, TV spokeswomen, beauty contestants...all would look like dull knives next to the scalpel-sharp radiance of Megumi's elegant beauty. I sighed as I realized that it would be hard on both of us...after all we're both guys. Keiichi would have to deal with Belldandy possibly getting jealous while I would have to deal with my hyper squeamishness around women.
"This is all because of *that* thing!" Keiichi said, pointing at the arcade game.
"What is that damn arcade game doing here anyway? No one's ever going to play it again, unless they're opting for admission to an insane asylum," I observed, feeling resentment at the sight of the machine.
"*Let's get rid of the fucker*!" we both shouted simultaneously. We each grabbed an end and dragged it out of the front door. I heard someone in the dining room say "What are they doing out there?", then someone else responded "It's some weird kind of male bonding, I think."
After five minutes of huffing and puffing, we had succeeded in dragging the machine a good 15 meters from the house, leaving a trail of matted grass in its wake.
"Belldandy, canya come here for a moment!" Keiichi shouted. A moment later, Belldandy and the rest emerged from the house. I fixed my eyes on Megumi again until I felt a pebble hit me square in the forehead. I looked in the direction it came from and saw Urd scowling at me.
"Bell-chan, let's trash that video game console," Keiichi said in a mock Clint Eastwood voice. I had to repress a burst of laughter.
"Yeah, that thing sucks! *I* never want to see it again!" said a visibly perturbed Megumi. I couldn't empathize with her any more.
"With pleasure!" Belldandy said as she pointed a finger at the machine. She recited a spell in the God's Language and a jagged shaft of blue light flew from her fingertip to the machine, blowing it up into tatters of wood and metal and glass. We all applauded the destruction of the "Arcade Game from Hell".
Belldandy had a smug smile on her face, which was echoed even more intently by Megumi's expression.
"Last one in the house have to rake the mess up!" Skuld said as she darted in the house. Since all of the women were in the doorway, Keiichi and I didn't have a chance.
"It's a tie between Keiichi and Cevn!" Megumi said before she dissolved into giggles. Keiichi walked resignedly towards the toolshed and grabbed two rakes while I walked to the entry drive and dragged three garbage containers towards the mess. Peals of feminine laughter rang inside the house, contrapuntto to our rhythmic raking.
"Remind me to put spicy musabi in her tea sometime," Keiichi said in a mock-angry voice.
After a couple hours of hard work, we had finished raking up the remnants of the game. At least Belldandy has incinerated most of it in the explosion, I noticed gratefully.
When we walked into the house, I called out, "Urd, I found something outside that I want to show you!"
Urd immediately rushed up to me with excitement. "Lemme see, lemme see it!"
"It's pretty small, you'll have to look real closely at it,"
I said as I proffered my hand. Urd leaned close in to see. I made like I was going to open my hand, then suddenly reached up and pinched her nose and held it.
"Keiichi told me about Bell's beauty enhancements to Megumi. That wasn't a prank you pulled back there...that was brutality, Urd. Next time you decide to play a trick on me, think twice...otherwise I'll get you back!" I playfully cautioned her, then released her nose.
Urd looked at me with embarrassment and bewilderment. Skuld was literally whooping with laughter and Belldandy teetered on the edge of losing it, holding her hand over her mouth. I guess it was too much to see her sister on the receiving end of the nose pinch she employed so often on Bell and Skuld. Belldandy laughed so hard, I thought her ribs would get sore.
Urd tried to shrug off the embarrassment I doused her with. "Well met, Cevn. But know this...the Norn of the Past will always frolic faster and better than you! You've only issued a challenge...I advise you to be on guard!" she announced in a vox rostra.
"You're right of course, that was unfair of me...but you should have seen the look on your face," she whispered in my earth mirthfully.
"I'll get you for this!" she announced for all to hear.
"We'll see who wins this competition of espieglerie!" I replied. At least this will provide me with some diversion in the few days before leaving for China.
After things settled down, Belldandy and I went to my "Cevn's Studio" room for another lesson from the Enigma Book. She taught me a number of theorems and cipheric cryptic symbols. After a couple of hours, we took a break. I figured that she would run off to talk with Keiichi, but mysteriously, she remained in the room. She looked like she wanted to discuss something with me.
"You must be getting more comfortable around women. You handled that incident with Megumi pretty well tonight. I wonder if Urd knew that you were flirting with her?" she said out of nowhere. Her voice trailed off, as if expecting me to finish her half-stated question. I felt my heart rise in my throat, shocked by her insinuation.
"Belldandy, you *can't* be serious. Flirting? Her and me? I was just getting her back for trying to take advantage of me earlier," I explained.
"Cevn," she said, sizing me up with a keen glance, "You must face the truth. You have become much more comfortable with women since you moved here. If today was your first day here and Urd did what she did, you would have climbed up a tree somewhere on the grounds and hidden yourself like a faber. Besides I know my sister well; after a few dozen millennia, I *know* when she's flirting...and she *was* flirting with you. But don't mind her too much...after all, she's Urd."
My face fell.
"Belldandy, you mean that she was...with me...that she... Nh nh! *No way*! Why would she do...why would she flirt with me? She knows that I get freaked out in those kind of situations," I argued.
"You'll have to ask her, Cevn. Besides, I think you got the better of her tonight. And she probably does too. Which means that you should be on your guard...Urd can be very impulsive when she's up to mischief," she warned.
"Great! Now I've become the focus of Urd's mischief!" I thought in a fit of dismay.

* * * * * * * *

Belldandy and Keiichi spent all night talking. It was as if they hadn't seen each other in years...and then suddenly encountered each other by chance in a public place, like a pedmall. At 3am, Skuld and Urd finally got fed up and jointly kicked them out of the sister's bedroom.
"Can't you guys whisper? I thought that's what you're supposed to do when you're in love," Skuld said.
"Yeah, you sleepwreckers! Go somewhere else and talk!" Urd added. Belldandy looked sheepishly at her two sisters, knowing that she had been caught being selfish. Keiichi grinned guiltily and edged towards the door. Rarely did Belldandy get caught red-handed at an impropriety...but this was blatant. The two left without a sound.
"Why'd we wait so long to do that?" Urd said, scratching her head as she looked at her little sister.
"Hey, this must be a first, the two of us cooperating against Belldandy," Skuld said with a giggle. Urd looked at her youngest sister and reached out to pull her nose.
"Owwwwiee!"
"Don't act so important!"
Keiichi and Belldandy went to the living room to continue their conversation. Both had realized again how dear they were to each other. Belldandy especially had reevaluated her companionate love for Keiichi. Somehow, her heart was gripped even tighter by the awareness that he was her best companion.
"Keiichi...how about another vacation?" she suggested.
"Bell-chan, we just took one to Nikko in May. How can we afford another one so soon?"
"Keiichi...remember all the big yen notes Cevn gave us for the house? There's plenty left. We could take two weeks and really go someplace. Besides, after what just happened, I really want to spend some time with you alone. I almost lost you to Mara's evil!" she justified, fixing him with her azure eyes.
"But what about Skuld? She's still a child," Keiichi asked, partly wanting to eschew any discussion about vacations and travel at the moment.
"Well, Urd will be here. So will Cevn and Megumi. They can keep Skuld in line, since Skuld has no powers. It would be just like three mortals together. Urd has a little power, she could keep everything in line," Belldandy said in reply.
"You really think Urd is responsible enough?"
"Of course she is," Belldandy answered brightly. Keiichi felt himself warming up to the pleasant possibilities of a two-week vacation with his girlfriend.
"You sure you can trust her...even if she's your older sister? She may be crazy at times, but she's never *really* screwed up, has she?" he asked, wanting to confirm her confident reply.
Belldandy could easily think of a dozen major Urd screw ups, but held her tongue when she noticed how intent Keiichi was on this vacation idea. Besides, it was a very tempting idea. Also, after what Keiichi described to her at the end of the race, she knew that Mara would be incapacitated for a long time.
"The poor Demon-girl, she never learns that you just *don't* oppose the Rules," she thought sadly.
"Okay!" she said with a beaming smile. Keiichi got up and pulled down a rolled up wall map of Japan.
"Let's decide this at random. Here, you toss this mini kaeru lucky charm onto the map. Where ever it lands, we'll go!"
"Oh, that sounds so fun!" Belldandy said as she extended her hand. She excitedly held the charm in her hand, then flipped it towards the map. The small golden turtle landed in between Matsuyama and Koche.
"Shikoku!" Keiichi said with a mixture of delight and disappointment. Realistically, Shikoku had the reputation of being a boring place to visit, unless one was an avid Buddhist looking to retrace the footsteps of Kobo Daishi.
"Mostly rural, with few places of interest to a young man like me," Keiichi ruminated despondently.
"How can I make it interesting to Bell-chan? Why didn't the charm land on someplace interesting, like Hokkaido with its cooler summer and natural beauty?" he thought with a brief moment's consternation.
"Keiichi, isn't this exciting...it landed on Shikoku!" Belldandy said with patent naiveté. Keiichi rolled his eyes as he reached for the phone to call for early morning JR reservations.

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