Ah My Goddess Fan Fiction ❯ Trial By Tenderness ❯ Part 28 - Tempestuous ( Chapter 28 )

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

Part 28 Tempestuous



"This is a special weather bulletin from your NHK affiliate in Tokyo. The unseasonably late cyclonic storm mass that we
have been carefully monitoring has increased steadily in intensity during the past two days. Right now, Typhoon Akira
measures as a Category Three Tropical Disturbance on the Saffir-Simpson scale. This scale measures the estimated
destructive power of tropical storms, ranging from Category One to Category Five. Category Three is considered extensive.
If Typhoon Akira makes landfall, the following damage may be expected to occur in the stormpath. Foliage may be torn from
trees; large trees blown down; poorly constructed signs blown down; some damage to roofing, windows, and doors; and small
buildings may sustain structural damage. The potential exists for serious flooding along the coastline: many small
structures near the coast may be destroyed while larger coastal structures may be damaged by battering waves and
floating debris. Low-lying escape routes inland may be cut off by rising water about 3 to 5 hours before landfall; flat
terrain 5 feet or less above sea level flooded up to ten or more kilometers inland. In the event of landfall, the
National Defense Forces will assist in the evacuation of low-lying residences within several blocks of shoreline.
Typhoon Akira is currently situated 800 kilometers SSW of..."


"You *had* to wish for a typhoon, didn't ya!" Urd exclaimed flatly, glaring at Keiichi with an admixture of amusement and contempt.
Keiichi quickly gulped down his coffee. The intensity of her stare made him flinch as he suddenly became aware of how *small* the dinner table was.
"Do you know how much *work* this is going to make for us!" she yelled self-righteously, her shout making every one at the dinner table jump. Last weekend, Keiichi had made the mistake of casually mentioning during dinner that he had half-heartedly wished that a typhoon would come.
"A typhoon will almost guarantee the treasured lightning strike which would make it possible for Bell-chan to return to her own body," he had reasoned aloud to the house members...
Now he was regretting his facetious offhand remark.
"Well, Keiichi *does* have his weird special quality...that allows for his wishes to almost always come true," Skuldandy interrupted, trying to salvage some sense of propriety. She knew that, despite all her posturing and accusations...Urd wouldn't raise a finger to stormproof the house. Her Big Sister was just too...*lazy*!
"Isn't this wonderful? I recall that typhoons in late October are quite rare in Japan...unless my dear Keiichi wishes for one," Bellkuld interjected with surpleasance, cheered that one of Keiichi's wishes was being fulfilled. She was also encouraged by the fact that the storm might make it possible to get back into her own body by the weekend.
It had been a long month in Skuld's girl-body!
"*Not* funny!" Skuldandy and Urd chimed with stereo disgust. The two sisters nodded to each other in agreement.
"We're in the path of a *typhoon*! If a lightning strike happens, *someone's* going to have to climb on the roof and retrieve Mjolnir...in the middle of that storm!" Skuldandy noted with a pensive realism.
"Glad it's not me, eh...Keiichi?" Megumi remarked, looking at Keiichi with a smirk. Everyone's eyes were focused on Keiichi, who was trying to act the part of the innocent.
"Why are you all blaming *me*?" he decried. "I didn't do anything wrong! All I wanted was for something to happen so I can have Bell-chan back! Besides, if *you* wouldn't have gotten your license suspended...we could have had things back to normal *weeks* ago! Right Urd?" he argued.
The Eldest Norn glowered at Keiichi in a very un-sagacious manner.
"Yeah...tell that to Genji, Tomohisa and Cevn when they're pounding planks over windows after a long day at school tomorrow," Urd taunted.
"Hey, funny enough, I lived in Hawaii for six years and never experienced a hurricane. Now that a typhoon is coming, I'm kinda excited! It'll be an adventure, don't you think? The 'Typhoon Adventure'!" Cevn observed.
Megumi, Keiichi, Genji, Tomohisa, Skuldandy, Bellkuld and Urd glared at him with irritated grimaces.
"Don't tell me that...you guys aren't the kind of people who get excited during storms, huh?" Cevn said in an attempt to defuse the tension.
"The simpleton speaks..." Skuldandy muttered, rolling her eyes.
"Yeah...right, Cevn-honey. The typhoon is coming and *you're excited*? Isn't that just wonderful! It's going to be such a *wonderful* adventure! Whattya you trying to do...save Keiichi's butt? You should *know* better than to take sides against me," Urd teased with rife sarcasm.
"Besides, after seeing a few thousand of them over the millennia, one tends to notice that they've claimed about a billion mortal lives! Perhaps, you might wanna listen to someone who has a different perspective than yours once in a while. Adventurous, eh? Nnh-nnh!" Skuldandy remarked in a more serious tone.
Cevn flashed Urd a look which said "do *not* call me 'honey' in front of the others, we haven't told them about *us* yet!" Urd giggled at his discomfiture, then wadded up a napkin and threw it at him.
"A typhoon's on its way *here*, and all he can do is think...that it's an *adventure*!" Urd said of Cevn while drawing a circle near her temple in the universally-known "idiot!" gesture, earning laughter from all present except Cevn.
"Keiichi...save me!" Cevn begged. Keiichi, despite being grateful that Cevn's foolish comment had let him off the hook, shook his head "no" with an amused smile.
"I can't! I already lost all my points! If you wanna gain a level, you're on your own this time," Keiichi explained. He was in no position to rescue Cevn from the sister's ire, having weighed a huge demerit against himself by admitting to everyone about his wish for a typhoon.
"Well, look on the bright side...NO SCHOOL!" Tomohisa shouted excitedly.
"Yeah, but unfortunately, some of us *like* being in school," Keiichi said testily, still feeling the sting Urd's sharp tongue.
"And some of us earn a living at school too," Cevn added.
"Spare me, with all the millions that came in your Enigma Book," Urd said drolly. Cevn looked at her and replied that he was tired of being a human target.
These confrontations didn't subdue Tomohisa's spirits a bit. He didn't care if *no one* felt the same way he did about the upcoming storm! In fact, the only thing he wasn't down with about the whole typhoon 'crisis'...was the impending postponement of tomorrow's baseball game against Toyotoma High. His high school's baseball club was on a winning streak.
"If we could play this way next spring in the high school leagues..." he daydreamed, mental images of national championship games at Koshien Stadium buzzing in his head.
At the end of the weather report, the cancellations were announced, including all the schools in the Boso Peninsula. Of course, N.I.T., being a college, would remain open.
"Urd's little prediction of hammerblows late into the evening seems uncannily accurate," Keiichi thought despondently.
The meteorologists were almost certain that Typhoon Akira would make a landfall in Japan. But where?
They were projecting landfall in mid-to-northern Honshu.

* * * * * * * *

I was exhausted...and Urd was right. After another grueling day at N.I.T., I came home, changed into an old pair of N.I.T. racing coveralls, and started pounded away.
We sealed with windows from the inside with caulk, the kind that could be peeled away after the storm hit. Then we stapled triple layers of plastic sheeting over the windows, then boarded them up. Taping the windows on the inside came next, and then we boarded up the sunroom door, leaving only the living room door as an exit. It was work, work, work, late into the evening.
Fortunately, the temple was built with ample design, because it had a double set of amado, the thick hardwood storm doors. I spent part of my time cleaning the grooves and sills to allow for easy sliding of the amado along the wooden verandas that girded our temple house. Each window sill had a small single amado that was stored away in the storeroom. We stacked these heavy shutters near each window, so we could batten them over the windows and lock them down shortly before the storm would landfall.
But the amado for the main entrance and the sunroom entrance were heavy pieces of wood. We had rarely used both sets in the past; shutting one was more than enough to keep most rains out. But Keiichi explained that we should make both sets of storm doors ready. The outer amado was held in track by an ingenious method: small round knobs of metal were placed on both sides of the groove in the wooden veranda to keep it from sliding out. Nevertheless, they were heavy to move from their storage. Each outer amado door had a series of woodpins that could be locked from the inside, to fasten them together.
I hoped that they would hold out against the typhoon.
The TV was going all day...and it looked like the storm was stalled just six hundred kilos south of us. That could mean that the typhoon could lose some of its strength, or possibly build up to an even more powerful fury. The weather guys were gloomy...their somber reports seemed filled with the sense that it would be the latter of the two possibilities.
While us guys were hammer-and-nailing everything in sight, Bellkuld was busy cooking up a storm. Keiichi had appraised her of the distinct possibility that we may find ourselves without water or electricity for an unknown amount of time, so she and Urd were busily preparing bento meals to provision our household. As the weather reports became succeedingly pessimistic, we planned for a worst case scenario; meals and water would have to last for at least a week.
Meanwhile, Skuldandy was occupied with trying to weatherproof all her mechas, including Banpei and Mini-Banpei. She also was trying to jury-rig a power amplifier, so that we might have electricity while the rest of the neighborhood went dark.
I could sense in Bellkuld's excitement that she was fully expecting a situation where she and Skuldandy could return to their rightful bodies. I stopped several times and sought a personal meditation towards the sisters. I didn't want to see either of them getting more frustrated.
All the tornado warnings that I experienced in the Midwest, all the hurricane preparation videos that I had watched in Hawaii...and yet there was a deathly still in the air...a foreboding silence.
While we were working, Keiichi and I discussed the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake that devastated Kobe over ten years ago. Keiichi was 12, in his first year of junior high school when the earthquake struck. His teachers immediately pressed his class into providing numerous disaster relief activities, such as food and clothing drives. He told me that when they went on the traditional class trip at the end of junior high to Osaka, Kyoto and Nara, the tour sponsors made it a point to travel through Kobe. Evidences of earthquake damage were still plainly visible two years later, much to his surprise. We discussed various environmental determinist theories; how some economists attributed the recession that began in '98...as partially providenced by the significant damage to Kobe, an important shipping center.
Since then, Japan had been free of any natural disasters...until now.
We also discussed how Sayoko had opted for an apartment; she had planned to move into it at the beginning of November. But with the storm coming, Sayoko decided that it would be more prudent to stay at her house...and with us. She was doing great in her recovery...a couple of times I had accompanied her to NA meetings in Tokyo. I looked on as she was actively helping Megumi weatherproof the interior of the living room. Seeing the two side-by-side, I wondered if they had worked through some of their differences.
Everyone was pulling together.
"The ties that bind us together..." I thought whimsically. Yes, I must be getting very burnt out if I can think whimsical thoughts in the face of a full-on Pacific tropical storm.

* * * * * * * *

The storm remained stalled the next day. With each new weather bulletin, we watched with downcast spirits as the satellite video and radar images of the typhoon depicted it as rapidly expanding in size. The networks were tragicomically portraying it as the "storm of the century", despite the fact that the century was only a few years old. At nightfall, for some unknown reason, it resumed a crawlsteady course towards Honshu. By this time, Typhoon Akira was classified as a Category Five storm...the most powerful category of tropical storm.
Catastrophic.
The deadliest storm the planet was capable of producing.
We all tried to get to sleep early, anticipating that relaxation and sleep would be a rare commodity for the next few days.
It started raining right after dinner. A deceptively soft rain...in contrast to the force of nature that we knew was coming our way. I went out on the front porch just before sunset to see that the entire sky was a nondescript gray. As the sun loomed lower to the horizon, the sky took on an unearthly pink-velvet hue. I had one of those 'transpersonal moments'; a moment where I unintentionally stepped out of the woof and warp of my life to see something routine in a renewed light. I looked over to see Urd standing next to me, also enjoying the last moments of sunset as the sky turned a dark purpled gray.

"Oh tempestuous winds aborneing the clouds,
raimenting the sky with taupe hue,
Alest these maidens of holy aspect,
Blossom Goddess wings,
And float, flying toward distant lands."

The sky colored my mood a melancholy gray, and reciting Bishop Henjo's poem from the "Hyaku-nin-Isshu" seemed appropriate, coming on the afters of a small moment of spiritual solace in the beauty of the sight.

"The mountainous wind comes in the autumn,
lives up to its name---typhoon,
it scatters reeds and twigs about,
spinwhirling them over the veld,
only to disarrange them again."

I looked at Urd to see an enchanting smile on her face. She had quoted the familiar 'storm poem' of Bunya Yasuhide from the eighth century, also part of the "100 Poems" collection.
"You know Japanese poetry?" I asked, fairly surprised by her quick response.
"Of course I do! I know *a lot* of things that you wouldn't even begin to suspect!" she answered with a mirthful expression. We continued in our poetic dialogue for a few moments, then stood in silence watching the rain.
Just like before, that one special night last spring...
"Urd," I said quietly. "Once we have your sisters back where they belong, I...I want to tell them. About us. Because...on a night like this...I really would like to spend the night with you. I find my thoughts turning to you, as if on their own. And we can't be together because our friends and family don't know."
"You're certainly being brave tonight, Cevn! Fear bringing out the inner romantic in you? Or is it the inner stud?" she said, winking at me. I flinched at her comment...but then again, this was Urd. Sexy Urd. Mystical Urd. Goddess Urd.
"A bit of both, actually. Besides, what man wouldn't jump at the opportunity to spend the night with an angelic Goddess..." I admitted. Much to my surprise, I wasn't gripped by panic at the very mention of anything sexual.
"It's about time you figured that one out! But you know, regarding what you just said about telling the others. It seems that we haven't really been ourselves. Don't you think I've been patient under the circumstances, Cevn?"
"Yes, and I appreciate your patience, Urd. It's been hard on me too, seeing you every day...but yet knowing that you're just out of reach. Not only because of the Ultimate Force, but also because of my job at N.I.T. and the fact that no one else knows..."
"Tell me about it!" she replied, looking at me warmly, then regarding the rain with a distant expression in her eyes.
"Remember that night last spring? You and I were standing right here, on this porch during the rain. We had just got into a fierce argument while I were teaching you how to read the Enigma Book? Tonight's just like that night, once again," she described. I felt my eyes tear up at the memory...and I looked at Urd through the film of my tears to see that she too was waxing in the past. I was so grateful for the fact that she shared a common feeling with me. That a single night had made a difference to her, with all her millennia of experiences. Our lives were intertwined; our memories were weaving a tapestry of todays together.
"Urd...thank you for caring. For finding value in me. For being in love with me. I'll make it up to you after things get to normal," I said, turning to her.
The wind gusted, warningly strong.
"*If* things ever get to normal," Urd said with a slight chill to her voice.
"Let's check the latest on the news..."

* * * * * * * *


I decided to watch the late-night TV broadcast with the others, torn between staying up longer or going to bed after the next hour-long weather report segment was finished. The weather broadcasts were becoming boring and repetitious; the only noticeable changes were the radar shots...showing the huge storm creeping ever closer to the mainland. But this time, instead of the normal weatherman and his jive, the network had preempted the local weather report with their version of an all-star weather news team, complete with a panel of dour-faced "disaster consultants":

"This is an emergency weather bulletin presented by the National Weather Bureau in Tokyo. Tropical Storm Akira, which
has been threatening the islands of Japan, has been classified as a Category Five Supertyphoon for the past 32 hours.
This storm poses extreme danger to those in its wake.
The following destruction will occur: Trees, shrubs, and all signs may be blown down; considerable damage to roofs of
buildings, with very severe and extensive damage to doors; complete failure on many roofs of residences and industrial
buildings; extensive shattering of glass in windows and doors; complete buildings destroyed; small buildings overturned
or blown away; temporary structures demolished and major damage to lower floors of all structures less than 15 feet above
sea level within one kilometer feet of the shore. Low lying escape routes inland will be blocked by rising water about
three to five hours before landfall and major erosion of beaches and hillsides will occur.
The National Defense Force will be enforcing a massive evacuation of residential areas occupying shoreline areas; they
advise residents to evacuate inland at least twenty kilometers because of the possible storm surge. Citizens are required
to cooperate with the evacuation efforts.
Make no mistake, Akira is a deadly storm. Wind speeds have been monitored at over 270kph around the eye of the storm,
with gusts over 320kph, according to observations by the Himawari Geostationary Meteorological Satellite..."


Everybody in the room gasped as the image switched to a fullscreen satellite image of a *huge* spiraling storm. It looked like it could cover half of Hokkaido, it was so massive...

"...not venture outside under any conditions until the storm passes and the sirens signal 'all safe'!
Supertyphoon Akira's current projected initial landfall will be anywhere from Atsumi Bay to Surago Bay.
Emergency storm shelters are being readied in all prefectures affected by the typhoon warning..."

We heard a knocking on the front door.
"Well, it looks like I'm going to be spending the night here with you guys," Sayoko announced as she invited herself in. "Better here with my brother and people I know, than at the mansion with the staff..."
I was glad that she opted to stay here...but I realized that her presence would make things very interesting, as she *still* refused to believe in the divine nature of Belldandy and her sisters.
Well, Bellkuld and her sisters.
It would be interesting to see how Sayoko Mishima would react to a 'Belldandy' who was actually Skuld. A 'Belldandy' that behaved like a 12-year-old girl.
I had a feeling that Sayoko was going to encounter much more than just a freakish superstorm...


* * * * * * * *

The sirens woke everybody up at 4 am. By that time, the wind was beginning to pick up. The weather felt like a windy spring day, where the winds would start gusting and gradually increase in strength for a few hours until they max out at 50 or 60 kph or so...and then fade away.
But the gusts didn't peak in strength there. The winds *kept* increasing, gaining stronger. I looked up in the sky to see a nondescript gray...sort of like an overcast sky. But as morning dawned, the sky darkened.
I had been in several "supercell thunderstorms" while I lived in Minnesota. Once, a hurricane had 'brushed' Oahu, causing flooding and downed treelimbs. An ominous element in the air always preceded these deadly storms; a distinct *something* in the atmosphere that reached down inside the bones, telling me that nature was going to be in control of things for the next few hours.
While I was using drugs and living on the streets, I had been pounded by thunderstorms many times; fully exposed because I had no place to stay except under any handy public shelter. Soaked to the bone, all I could do was ride the storm out. Now, I was riding the storm out again. All insanity aside, we had unanimously agreed to remain at the temple, despite the urgency. Bellkuld had somehow managed to convince the National Defense Force soldiers patrolling our neighborhood that we would be safe at our temple home.
But the static charge that lent a tinny smell to the air, the storm clouds devouring the horizon like wolves, the huge decrease in barometric pressure...*everything* that was building up...was far more ominous that what I could remember from the Midwestern thunderstorms. Deep inside, I felt a recoil at what was happening to the environment around me.
A tempest of the spirit.

* * * * * * * *


******WWWROARRRRRRR!*******


"Shit, this is crazy! When's it ever going to *end*?" Megumi hoarsely shouted above the din the winds were whipping up. Funny thing how one's nerves could be exerted to a steady hypervigilance...and yet one can feel exhausted at the same time.
I barely made out what she yelled, but the terror on her face elaborated her words by volumes. We were huddled together in the hallway between the two rows of bedrooms as the clamor of the supertyphoon's winds pounded down on us. Looking at us in the hall, it reminded me of the tornado drills I experienced in elementary school. We kids would sit alongside the hallway in rows, holding our heads between our legs...hoping, if a tornado did come, that we wouldn't have to kiss our asses goodbye.
I was scared shitless.
Any sense of bravado I had...disappeared about two hours ago. All my dignity and composure had been blown away an hour ago. Since about half an hour ago, I was fully expecting the maelstrom to fly the roof off from over our heads at any moment. I could hear the crack-popping of roof tiles as they were shorn off by the gusts. My nerves were screaming "shutdownshutdownshutdown" throughout my body. Once more, I wished that we had evacuated to a public shelter when the NDF van came by with its bullhorn.
One of the most unnerving elements of the supertyphoon was the incessant pelting of sheets of rain against everything...the house, the roof, the walls...I felt an almost primal claustrophobic reaction to the 'surround sound' of furious downpour.
Urd was sitting next to me, huddled as close to me as she could get with our 'anti-touch' forcefields (or whatever they were) in effect. I noticed Bellkuld looking at us questioningly, probably wondering why her sister was unable to squeeze against me fully. Urd's face was drawn tight into a fearmask. In my own desperate alarm, I imagined taunting her with a remark about 'perspective' in regards to her comment the other day about earthly severe weather. I uncharitably envisioned the all-powerful Gods and Goddesses watching the capricious weather roil over this mortal plane for millennia, viewing it with a detached manner similar to how we would watch a disaster broadcast on NHK or CNNI.
But it was readily apparent that she was terrified...and my heart went out to her. I wished I could offer some comfort or solace or even confidence to reduce her fear. In the past few weeks, we had talked almost every day, but our romantic life had been put on hold because of my commitments at N.I.T. and her sister's plight. We *really* needed to get in some personal time.
"Urd...I bet that you've never been in a hurric..er..supertyphoon before," I shouted in her ear, shakily remembering which side of the International Date Line I was now living on.
"No shit! How'd you ever guess?" she said with the sarcasm of the miserable.
"Well, if it's any consolation, I haven't either," I said with a forced grin. My smile did *not* cheer her up...she was petrified with fright. So was I. I wanted to hold her and assure her that we would survive the storm...but of course, I couldn't because of the strange affliction the Ultimate Force had forced upon us.
"Guess I'm eating my words about this storm being a 'typhoon adventure', huh?" I admitted with embarrassment. Urd looked at me and smiled for a brief moment as she nodded her head to affirm her enjoyment at my eating crow. She pulled her hand deep inside the sleeve of her wool sweater, then splashed me playfully in the face with the now-empty rainsoaked cuff of the sleeve.
Sayoko had brought her handheld HDTV unit into the hallway. Several of the broadcast TV stations were already off the air and most of the wireless cable channels were very difficult to tune in. We finally gave up on it, and listened to its radio instead. Passing it up and down our facing lines along the hallway, each of us held it up to our ears and strained to listen.
The news announced repeatedly that the most powerful portion of the storm was going to pass over just north of Chiba and continue until it exited Honshu just south of Mito. Thus, the Boso Peninsula and Ibaraki Prefecture were going to bear the brunt of the storm.
Great. Just north of Chiba is the little industrial suburban outcropping of Makuhari.
"Why us?" Keiichi shouted at the TV, holding it at arm's length. As I looked from face to face, we appeared to be in the dregs of fearful misery.

* * * * * * * *

"AIIIIYYYY!!!!!"

Just as someone screamed, Urd jerked her head up suddenly as another window blew out with a loud crash, this one in the dining room.
The storm was blowing off the heavy amado shutters, one by one. Somehow, with invisible fingers of rainwind, it had pried open the heavy storm doors in the front entrance!
She could see rains spraying across the entrance to the hallway, the winds propelling the rain *horizontal* to the floor. The roaring of the wind went up another notch inside the house. It was a good thing that Megumi had the foresight to cover everything in the living room with plastic sheeting. She looked at her housemates, hunkered down in the middle of the hallway, midway between the bathroom at the end and the opening to the living room. Despite being 8 to 10 meters from the living room end, the sound was incredible and everyone's faces were soaked with a fine liquid mist.
She could feel a pool of water lapping around her ankles...
Cevn was worried about his room and its expensive array of keyboards and equipment. A soaked futon could be dried out over a couple of days, but a Synclavier Workstation was trashed if it got soaked. He had put everything in cases and plastic bags as a precaution, but he was still occupied with concern.
Each minute seemed to stretch on for hours. The winds had been roaring for several hours, according to Keiichi. This storm was a dread case scenario: it was a very slow-moving Category Five Tropical Disturbance. The most powerful category of storm in existence. The weathermen had called it a "supertyphoon"...and it was bearing out its new label by sheer dint of destruction. Keiichi's nerves felt like they were being pulled out and washed against a cheese grater. He agreed with Megumi, this was the neverending storm...
But in the space of a few minutes, the winds dramatically leveled off to a gusty reprieve.
"The eye of the storm!" Genji announced. Everyone sighed a gasp of relief, despite the realization that the other side of the storm is often more intense. At least they were being graced with a brief, but merciful respite.
"I wanna look!" Skuldandy shouted, her flaxen light brown hair soaked to a deep rich auburn. She stood up and dashed into the living room...then halted in her steps. Almost a foot of water covered the tatami, and all of the windows had been blown out. Wood shards, nails, tree branches and foliage, and shredded plastic were floating on the muddied water. One of the storm doors was lying on its side, shoved out of its sliding track. The two sets of storm doors had been pushed apart, wide enough for a person to easily walk between them.
"Whoooah!" Sayoko shouted, surveying the damage.
"We gotta check the pole to see if Skuldandy's hammer got struck by a lightning bolt!" Keiichi shouted excitedly. Bellkuld looked at him in alarm.
"Keiichi...*no*! Oh no! It's much too dangerous! You *can't* go outside like this! What if the storm hits again?" Bellkuld pointed out, gripped by worry.
"I've *got* to! What if the pole gets blown loose? We could lose our only chance! C'mon guys!" he said to us with a beckoning motion. Genji, Tomohisa and Cevn accompanied him outside. Keiichi could feel the dramatic drop in air pressure that was present in the eye of the supertyphoon.

* * * * * * * *

Looking around, I surveyed the damage. My carefully plotted Japanese Garden was no more. The whole yard...was no more! It had been turned into a muddy pool. A tree in the corner of the compound which Skuld used to climb was no longer climbable...it was snapped down about ten feet up the trunk. The large wall that encircled the compound had saved us from greater damage. The ground was littered with roof tiles, shingles from the outbuildings, branches and limbs of trees. Several other trees had been uprooted, their thick tendril-like rhizomes webbed in mudclusters a meter taller than I stood.
Looking up into the eye of the supertyphoon was daunting. I could see the walls of the cloud all around us, knowing in my mind that they were rising vertically to at least 15 kilometers. The strange calm was almost hypnotic...but the inner shield clouds of the supertyphoon were like nothing I'd ever seen. They spiraled themselves in paisley-like designs that belied their incredible strength. In contrast, the circlet of sky overhead was almost navy blue. The air pressure felt all *wrong* to my senses.
We propped up the ladder and Keiichi climbed it. We only had a few minutes, so there was no time to place balancing bevels at the base of the ladder. Besides, the water reached almost to the first rung. Genji, Tomohisa and I tried to steady the extendable ladder while Bellkuld looked, her brows knit tight with anxiety. Oblivious to our delicate scenario, Skuldandy was prancing around the courtyard. She was splashing water with an almost insane abandon, obviously amped out by the sheer destructiveness of the storm and the frizzle of her own nerves.
Urd regarded us with grave concern.
"Almost...there," I heard Keiichi say as he gained the last steps on the ladder. A leave got tangled in my hair...the wind was starting to pick up already! I felt an airborne mist peppering my face as the wind increased from a breeze to a bluster.
The ladder began shaking like a live thing in our hands as the wind suddenly gusted. I craned my head upward and saw Keiichi undo the last tie of the rope and heft Mjolnir over his head with a triumphant expression.
"I GOT IT!" he yelled aloud with joy. Bellkuld was even more fraught with apprehension as he gingerly started to step down the shaky ladder.

****Crack!****

The pole, which somehow had remained fastened to the roofbeam of the house during the first half of the supertyphoon, now broke out of its weakened moorings and fell away from the temple house. The ladder was ripped from our grip as the pole collided with it and Keiichi. In front of my horrified eyes, Keiichi fell towards the ground with an almost slow-motion arcing descent.
"KEIICHIIIIIIII!" Bellkuld and the rest of us screamed.
The force of the falling ladder had knocked all three of us down onto the muddied grounds. My heart leapt into my throat as I hit the ground and heard a sickening *thud* seconds later.
The girls got to him first, as we three guys holding the ladder were tossed away like rubber dolls. Tomohisa appeared to have the breath knocked out of him by his fall; he was standing up very unsteady on his feet. We scrambled to reach Keiichi. I could hear him moaning with pain, which assured me that he was at least alive and conscious.

* * * * * * * *

Megumi emerged from the house and wordlessly screamed with her eyes as she ran over to her brother, hands clenched tightly in front of her chest.
From what little she had glimpsed of his fall, she gathered that Keiichi had instinctively tried to right himself as he fell towards the ground. He landed on his legs a split-second before the pole and ladder fell atop him. But instead of pinning him to the ground, his legs had somehow slipped outwards on the slick submerged mudpool...and he was thrown about five feet to the right of the pole. There were two deep grooves in the mud where his feet had slid out from under him.
He was almost completely covered by water!
Urd and Skuldandy returned with the kosatsu, and they gingerly lifted Keiichi up on it, so that he wouldn't drown.
Megumi looked into his eyes and saw by his dilated pupils that Keiichi was in physical shock. His eyes remained locked on Bellkuld and he seemed to relax a slight bit as the winds continued to gust around us. Bellkuld reached down and gripped his hand tightly between hers, her own hands violently shaking with emotion.
Out of the corner of her eye, Megumi saw Cevn sprinting towards the temple torii gate leading out into the street.

* * * * * * * *

Bellkuld was beside herself. Her face had blanched as soon as she saw the pole arc-sweep away from the house with Keiichi caught underneath it. She watched helplessly as the three seconds of his fall etched itself indelibly in her heart with carvings of pure terrifying shock. She remembered saving him from falling off the bridge, from drowning, from being crushed by a runaway truck...but there was *nothing* she could do this time, trapped as she was in Skuld's body with no Goddess powers whatsoever!
She screamed even as she started running towards the place where he fell. Urd and Skuldandy were right behind her; both gripped in the deep trauma of mind-numbing apprehension.
"Keiichi?" Bellkuld said pleadingly as she knelt next to him, the windy rain plastering her long black locks against her face and clothes. She lifted his head partway on her lap, seeing the water covering his face and his body. Her brown eyes (Skuld's brown eyes) flowing with rain and tears, she uttered a prayer to Kami-sama, invoking all that she knew to protect him and let him survive this fall.
She heard Keiichi moan as they lifted him up on the table, and her heart passioned to his side, feeling his gasps of pain with as deep an empathy as only a soulmate could. Keiichi seemed to fasten his eyes on her, desperate to recognize something, anything, in the midst of his pain and the ever-mounting windgusts. Bellkuld felt his whole body vibrating with trauma. She looked over to see Skuldandy retrieve Mjolnir.
"I think my leg is broken...I can't move it," he said weakly, fading in and out of consciousness.
"Ohhh, Keiichi," was all that Bellkuld could say. She looked at his legs and felt a sickening feeling as she noticed several places where his jeans protruded at odd angles.
"Keiichi, I'm going to check and see how hurt you are," Urd assured him, trying to calm him. She had enough presence of mind to 'scan' Keiichi for any other injuries. Several months of gradually decaying Earth Spirit powers had limited her severely: this was about the extent of what she could do.
"Bell, he's okay, but his legs are broken pretty bad and he has a few broken ribs. He's definitely going to need medical attention. Soon!" she informed her sister. Urd felt a small consolation; she was deathly afraid that he had suffered intense internal injuries to his organs...but only one lung was pierced. Everything else seemed okay as she re-scanned him.
Keiichi coughed up a clout of phlegm and blood.
"Urd...*do* something," Bellkuld asked in a desperate voice.
"Without my powers, I can't release the all the pain...but I'll try," she struggled aloud as she passed her hands over Keiichi. With great effort, Urd was able to take away a good two-thirds of his discomfort. Her powers had been getting steadily weaker over the several months of her license suspension...even with Earth Spirit powers, she *should* have been able to siphon off all of Keiichi's pain and have power to spare to put him in a sealing spell. But, as she treated his injuries, her manifest form started shrinking and deforming.
"Urd...that's enough," Keiichi said in a hoarse voice, waving his hand side-to-side in the "stop" gesture. He smiled weakly at her in gratitude, recognizing what she had accomplished at the expense of almost totally depleting her power. Urd shrunk to a very minuscule mini-Urd size and Skuldandy scooped her up and put her 5cm form safe inside a pocket before the winds could pick her up and sweep her away.
Bellkuld blanched even more as she saw several red stains forming on his pant legs.

* * * * * * * *

I had decided to run out into the street to try and hail a vehicle...any vehicle. Keiichi was severely injured from his fall and he needed to get to a hospital immediately. For some reason, my reaction to his deep state of physical shock was to seek help...perhaps the most important form of First Aid. It brought to mind Urd's attempted suicide back in the Summer Palace in Beijing. There was little chance of any bystanders helping her then...and now, none of us bystanders could provide aid, divine healing or mundane medical.
I vaulted the wall of sandbags we had erected across the torii gateway...and splashed thigh deep in flood waters! I knew it would be nothing short of a miracle for me to find anyone on the flooded road, but I had to try. Keiichi would be okay in the present moment with all the attention he was getting from the others, but the wind was howling again...it soon would be roaring. Hopefully, I could spy a vehicle before the winds got over 100kph.
The wind and rain pelted me as the approaching force of the supertyphoon began to vent its windy spleen on the city. Everywhere I looked, everything was damaged in some way...
In the distance, I saw sheets of rain glowing blue and red.
"A police car?" I hoped aloud as I ran laboriously against the wind, the racing gusts providing an invisible sumo wrestler intent on thwarting my forward progress. As I waded towards the source of the light, I could make out a distinct flashing pattern of an emergency vehicle. Soaked to the bone and freezing with the sharp winds attacking me, I finally lurched forward another few steps.
The car was a mini...a late 80's/early 90's Honda compact car!
"Almost an antique," I thought, observing the small Honda Beat. I stepped in front of its path and waved it down. It rolled to a stop about 5 meters away, cutting through the deep waters like a wave...and I ran up to it.
I could barely see anything, but it looked like there were two policewomen dressed in blue on-duty uniforms inside of the car.
"What policewoman would be wearing an *off-duty* uniform in the middle of a national disaster?" I chided myself. They were looking at me with a combination of fear and concern. I tried to gesture to them, pointing in the general direction of the temple compound. Their faces were uncomprehending; the gray sheets of rain made it more than likely that they could barely see or hear me. I pounded on the roof and windshield of their civic vehicle to get their attention. Finally, one of the policewomen rolled down her window a couple inches.
She had a short hairdo, which reminded me of Megumi's pert 'do, save that it was a slight bit shorter. She was a couple years older than Keiichi's sister...possibly in her mid-to-late 20s, I guessed. But any resemblance to Megumi ended there. She had light green eyes, which glowed with a manic illumination...her whole aspect seemed to exude a wildness that was almost streetwise tough. Her face was intense with excitement and confidence. For some unknown reason, her deportment conveyed the impression that she was a tomboy. This impression was augmented by the backwards Yokohama Bay Stars baseball cap she wore. Her sleeves were rolled up tightly on her shoulders and her arms were lean and muscular.
"Whaddya want? Don't you know that there's a typhoon going on around us?" she shouted against the windgusts.
"Can we be of assistance?" the other policewoman asked politely after making a face at her passenger. Sitting in the driver's seat, she had long black hair, which she wore parted in the middle, pulled back into a long French braid down her back. Stray wisps of hair framed a beautiful face; her smile was gentle in contrast to the gung-ho grinning of the other occupant of the car. Surprisingly, she had *blue* eyes, a rarity among Japanese woman. I could hear all sorts of cacophony blaring on her car radio, until I realized it was the chatter of the police-band receiver.
All this passed through me in a second.
"I..."
"Get in, you're soaked!" the driver commanded. I tried to open the door...it was locked. She gave the other policewoman an icy glance.
"Let 'm *in*, Natsumi!" she said as she nudged the other with her elbow.
I pulled myself into the back seat of the car, along with a washtub deep tide of water. It was small and cramped. I leaned forward between the bucket seats...and suddenly recognized where I had seen these two faces before!
I almost choked on the gasp in my throat...
"There's been an accident down the block...my friend fell off an extension ladder!" I hurried shouted, trying to be frantic and parsimonious at the same time. The two policewomen turned around to look at me with astonished faces.
"What the *hell* was your friend doing up on an extension ladder? And why the hell did you let him climb up there?" the short-haired policewoman confronted me aggressively.
"What the hell difference does it make? He *had* to go up and get something...and we're wasting time with your little crossexam while he's lying injured *outdoors* in this storm!" I squared back. I heard the driver gasp under her breath.
The short-haired policewoman looked angrily at me for a brief second. I half-expected her to say "You're Under Arrest!", her expression was so toughwise. Then her face softened slightly, and then she smiled at me.
"Sorry, but you look like a criminal with your long hair. I thought you were conning us. Really, we're out of our element here. We're from the Bokuto district in Tokyo, and they sent us all the way out here to the boonies...oops, I mean Makuhari...to provide disaster relief and patrol for looters. We've been trying to drive in this storm for hours. You might have heard our sirens really early this morning?" she stated.
"Okay...we're even!" I said, referring to her remark about my 'felonious' disheveled hair.
"I'm Officer Tsujimoto Natsumi and this is my partner, Officer Kobayakawa Miyuki. Intro's over...let's go rescue your friend!" she said smartly as she turned on the siren.

* * * * * * * *

"Keiichi's much too injured to be moved into the house!" Megumi knew instinctively. She and the rest formed a circle around Keiichi, shielding him from the elements while Genji had dashed in the house to retrieve blankets to cover him. She was worried that they would have to stay outside for the rest of the storm...an impossibility. The winds were almost blowing her over as she sat next to her brother...and they were getting stronger, as the big limbs on the trees nearby were starting to sway.
Skuldandy felt a tugging in her pocket...and a moment later, her Big Sister was standing next to her, full-sized. She remembered as she watched Keiichi fall how her nerves went instantly rigid. Sometimes, she both loved and despised Keiichi more than anyone else in the world...and for a brief second, she thought she was watching him fall to his death. But when she ran over with the others, she saw that her unbreathed wishes had been answered. Keiichi wasn't only alive, but he was awake and aware as well. It was even more of a relief when Big Sister Urd pronounced that his injuries were serious, but not critical. Megumi huddled close to her brother with the others, sheltering him against the elements. It was hard for her to keep her eyes away from his legs...she knew that the broken bones had perforated his skin. Looking at the extent of his severe leg injuries, a horrible thought passed through her mind.
"What if my brother's legs are so messed up...that they can't heal right...and *he can't ever race again*!" Megumi thought with rapt shock. The very image of Keiichi being unable to drive in car and motorcycle races was vehemently abhorrent to her. She tried to mentally package it away, hoping that the others weren't thinking the same thing.
Genji returned and threw down two blankets.
"Shit!!! I knew it! The phone lines are all dead! There's no chance of reaching the hospital for an ambulance. How is he?" he said as Megumi quickly grabbed his hand and clenched it tightly, desperately seeking comfort.
Bellkuld was still cradling Keiichi's hand in her own. She had positioned herself next to the table so she could pillow his head. But her arm was much smaller because she was in Skuld's body. She rested her hand on his head...he was burning up!
Urd had used the absolute last dregs of her power to restore herself to normal size...the last thing she wanted was to be in mini-Urd form in the midst of blasting storm winds. Thinking quickly, she dashed to the temple house, then returned with two rubber cords.
"Sorry, Keiichi, but this is going to hurt just for a moment," she warned him. Urd winced as Keiichi moaned in pain when she reached under each leg, then tied each cord tight about mid-thigh on his legs.
"Urd, what are you doing?" Bellkuld asked shrilly as Keiichi squeezed her hand hard. She panicked as her elder sister was hurting Keiichi.
"Bell, he's losing blood...I have to make tourniquets for his legs so he doesn't lose any more vital fluids. It hurts me as much as it hurts him, believe me," she explained to her younger sis. Indeed, Urd had to look away several times as she tied Keiichi off...his groans were too painful to hear *and* see.
Megumi felt a world of sorrow for Bellkuld. She tried to place herself in her situation...what if *Genji* had fallen from such a height? She reached over and put her arm around Bellkuld, whose small body was shaking with distress. Keiichi was still conscious, but his eyes disclosed a certain lack of alertness bordering on intoxication. Bellkuld leaned over him, trying to hold down the blankets as they flapped wildly in the wind. Amidst the roaring winds, she thought she heard an approaching siren.
A few seconds later, the siren grew loud...
A *police car* was coming! But how would they break through the sandbag wall at the temple gate?

* * * * * * * *

Miyuki listened closely as their gaijin passenger directed her down the street. She thought he was nuts to be walking around in this kind of weather...this was a Category Five Supertyphoon! And his friend...on a ladder? Her police radio was achatter with accounts of injuries, building and tree collapses, power outages and worse. The storm surge would be hitting the oceanside properties any time...if it hadn't already. Unbelievably, she overheard a police dispatch to a bank in Kando...some criminal types were trying to make off with the bank's safe under the 'protection' of the supertyphoon's rage!
"Make a right into that temple," the long-haired guy in the back seat directed.
"You guys live in a *temple*?" she asked him.
"Nah...it's a correctional center that's designed to look like a temple...for us criminal types," he said, teasing Natsumi.
"Cut it out, or I *will* handcuff you...and leave you out in the rain," she taunted back, dangling a pair of cuffs on her fingers.
Miyuki giggled at her partner's comeback as she turned into the temple entrance.
Then she saw the sandbags...
"Shit!" she cursed as she slowed her Honda down to a crawl.
"What kind of idiots would block off the entrance to their home with sandbags?" Natsumi swore, glancing back at Cevn with a scowl.
"The kind of idiots who prepare for a typhoon..." Cevn explained sarcastically.
"What are we going to do, Miyuki?"
Miyuki slapped the dash in frustration. She contemplated the situation...then reversed her Honda Beat and backed slowly up the flooded street.
She remembered all of the cars she had lovingly worked on. The "Miyuki Special" Subaru R2DX police car, which Natsumi often jokingly called "R2D2"...because sometimes the car seemed to have a mind of its own, despite Miyuki's expert driving skills. The Nissan "Fairlady" 240ZG, whose engine she had modified for highway patrolling. And Today...
"Today" was the name of this car, Miyuki's souped-up Honda Beat. She had employed her mechanistic artistry all-out to create one of the fastest accelerating cars in Tokyo. Boring out the 600cc engine twice with surgical precision, she now had it up near 800cc. This car was her fave, an innocuous-looking road dynamo which had caught hundreds of speeders. Unbeknownst to Natsumi, Kenny Nakajima and the rest...Miyuki had etched hash marks on the engine mounts for each successful high-speed chase resulting in an arrest. Today wasn't just a car...she was *family*!
Her most favorite car in the world...
"But this'll be a *major* challenge!" Miyuki thought grimly as she regarded the wall of sandbags. She needed a bulldozer, not a Honda compact!
With a quick series of calculations, Miyuki realized that it would be possible to plow through the bags if she rammed them at an oblique angle, rather than head-on. But could her car withstand the pounding?
"This is a dire emergency, Today! I expect you to give it everything you've got...because you're saving someone's life!" she whispered to her car.
Natsumi felt her ears prick up when she heard her partner whispering. The whispering could only mean...
"Miyuki, you're not gonna... It's impossible! YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS!!!" Natsumi yelled in tight-lipped panic as her partner's face tightened up with determination. *That* wide-eyed look of determination...the one that only Miyuki could pull off during a totally riotous road chase. And the whispered words of encouragement to "Today"...
"Fasten your seatbelts and hang on...I'm gonna demo that sandbag wall!!!" Miyuki announced with a confident shout.
"Miyukiiii..!" Natsumi screamed, barely hearing her voice over the car's revved deep-motored growl.
Heelpunching the pedal to the drivetrain, Miyuki pulled the nitro switch out...and shifted into drive!
Natsumi's eyes went wide as their Honda screamed forward...

***BAMMMBBBB!!!***

Cevn was completely lost for words as the little policecar smashed into the sandbags...and he was tossed around the back seat like a tennis ball.
"Shit!!! I'm gonna get killed trying to rescue my friend!" he shouted as Miyuki reversed the car, backing up for a second attempt. He had read the "Taiho Shichauzo" manga...and he knew that Miyuki would stop at nothing once her mind was made up to attempt a driving feat...
"SHUT UP!" the two policewomen shouted, silencing him.
Miyuki realized that her headlights were smashed from the first attempt; there was no lightbeams to penetrate the gusty downpours.
This would be their last chance.
She cautiously backed up the Honda Beat an extra block, feeling like she was driving a boat as the high waters rocked her car. Then she backed it up even further, so that she would have more momentum once she crankcased the motor towards bludgeon-dozing speed.
"Come on Today!!!" she encouraged her Honda Beat with a warcry as she floored the accelerator. Because of the wheelbase-deep floodwaters, her police car struggled at first to gain speed. Gritting her teeth, she aimed at the partial breach in the sandbags...

***BAMMMBSSHHHhhh!!!***

"We made it!" Miyuki announced, slamming on the brakes seconds after they had blasted through the bags. She noted with amusement that her partner and the gaijin guy had both covered their eyes with their arms during the second attempt. Patting her trusty "Today" on the dash, Miyuki could barely make out the tight circle of people crouching in the rain nearby.
Natsumi was still a little hot under the collar after their passenger had talked back to her. He was insolent, well deserving of being slapped with some kind of arrest...or with her gloved hand. But then she saw the pleading desperation in his blue eyes.
"He's kinda cute, in a stupid shaggy-rug sort of way," she thought as she relented her anger somewhat. She realized that he was being blunt only because he wanted to help his friend. His light-hearted joking had cooled her off some more, and when she saw the group of people huddled in a circle, she felt the rest of her anger disappear. Quickly becoming all business, she recalled the storm emergency procedures they had been briefed on at the station.
As Miyuki pulled their patrol car to a stop, she saw the cluster of people and breathed a sigh of thanks. It was a good thing that Superintendent Tokomaru had assigned them to the outlying areas near Tokyo...now they would be able to be of *real* assistance to someone instead of simply driving around in the rain.
Fighting against the becking rainblasts, Miyuki mountainclimbed against the wind towards the group. Reluctantly, she cast a backwards glance towards her precious, well-kept police car.
"Ohhh, my dear Today..." she sighed as she shook her head with a mixture of pride and sadness.
The whole front end of her most beloved mechanical being in the whole of Japan was crumpled...
Natsumi hopped out of the car and opened the hatch to get some first aid supplies and a stretcher. The wind was furious, and she was soaked to the skin in less than 30 seconds despite her police-issue overcoat. She looked to see that her partner was already attending to the injured man.
She hustled over with the supplies, after pulling the back seat down. She saw a mixed group of...students? In a Zen Buddhist temple? What was going on here? There was a long pole and an extension ladder lying in the mud near the group.
She saw several gaijin amongst the group. One, a little girl with long black hair in a funny outfit, was holding the hand of the injured man, whose head was cradled in her arm.
The wind was screaming all around them...

* * * * * * * *

Megumi was stunned when she saw the mini police car smash through the sandbag wall! Someone had come to fetch Keiichi and take him to the hospital! She looked up to see two policewomen pile out of the small car, its red and blue lights reflecting strobe-like off the temple compound buildings and the encircling wall.
"Thankyou..thankyou..thankyou!" she breathed.

* * * * * * * *

Miyuki could see the physical symptoms of shock in the young man's eyes as soon as she saw him lying on the ground. Obviously a college student, she sensed.
"He's got two broken legs and several cracked ribs," a tanned woman with long platinum-blonde hair informed her with a knowledgeable air.
"She looks like a model," Miyuki thought as she sized up the woman. She looked at the rest of the small circle...they all appeared to be college students except for a young teenage boy and girl. The little girl appeared to be the most distraught one in the group; she was holding the injured man's hand in a tight clutch. Probably his younger sister. She couldn't have been more than 12 or 13.
Miyuki felt almost nauseous as she saw the brown and red spatches on his jeans. If *she* was feeling upset just by looking at his injuries...she could only imagine how his friends felt! She thought it best to let Natsumi handle the injured man, as her First Aid training seemed to have slipped her mind a bit during the stressful gateramming a moment ago. Besides, she was much personable than Natsumi at times...and these people needed to be calmed down right away!
"I'm a kind of...doctor," the tanned woman volunteered, answering her unvoiced question.
Miyuki nodded wordlessly at Natsumi...their partnership was so empathic that a simple glance or gesture was enough for each policewoman to 'assign' herself to different aspects of the task at hand. Being able to read each other in emergencies was a crucial part of any partnership in the police force; Miyuki could always be assured that Natsumi and she could divide their assignments on the fly. She smiled at her partner, as Natsumi pulled back her parka hood and knelt next to the injured young man.
While Miyuki was calming his friends and gathering information, Natsumi had walked over and covered him with two heavy raincoat. His whole body was shivering. She realized that she needed to ascertain the depths of his physical shock.
"He's pretty bad off...I'm going to hate moving him cause it'll be really painful," Natsumi observed to herself, mentally sizing up the situation as she knelt next to him.
"Do you know where you are? What your name is?" she asked.
"I'm outside my home...I think. My name is Morisato Keiichi, and I'm a student. At N.I.T. in Makuhari. Nekomi Institute of Technology or something like that. My legs and chest...really hurt," he answered with a moan. Natsumi leaned close to his face to hear him. She didn't hear all of his name, but he did seem to know that he was a college student at some technical institute. The wind and rain was making too much noise for her to hear anything else.
"He's totally handsome, even if he is a little bit short for a guy!" Natsumi noted approvingly, despite the fact that he was soaked by the downpouring rains. Every second would count until she got him safe in their police car! The civilians were in great danger as well, being outside in these mounting winds and rains. She needed to offer assurance...and get everyone to safety!
"Keiichi, we're going to take you to Chiba Prefectural Hospital in Chiba. You're going to be there soon. Are you gonna be okay?" she said, trying to project as much confidence as she could muster.
He nodded his head.
"Okay...I'll be right back!" Natsumi said as she patted him on the shoulder. A moment later, she was behind their car, reading the stretcher she had pulled out of the hatchback trunk.

* * * * * * * *

Megumi felt even more relief as she saw that one of the policewomen was getting a stretcher. The short-haired policewoman unfolded it, then effortlessly walked over to where they were huddled around Keiichi.
"My Lord...she must be *incredibly strong*! She didn't even stagger from the force of the wind as she carried that stretcher and those supplies over!" Megumi noted with awe.
"Okay! We have the situation under control now! You civilians should all return to the safety of your hou...er...temple! This weather is dangerous!" the short-haired policewoman yelled officiously.

* * * * * * * *

"Can I go with him? Please...he's my boyfriend!" the little girl with the black hair asked Miyuki as she and Natsumi were gently sliding Keiichi onto the stretcher. Miyuki jerked stiff as the words sunk in. She looked at Natsumi, who was facefallen with astonishment. She felt like the wind had been knocked out of her.
"He's a PERVERT...we're rescuing a pervert! It's horrible! U..unspeakable! He...and a little girl this age?" she thought angrily.
"She can't be more than 12 years old...this is definitely a case of statutory rape if they're sleeping together," Natsumi thought in absolute disgust.
All of Miyuki's earnestness towards helping this handsome college student fled away in a flash as she felt a wave of queasiness. She looked again at Natsumi, whose whole face was quivering with barely-suppressed anger as she strapped him to the stretcher.
"Well, at least we got him where we want him. There's nothing he can do about us filing a report on *this*..." Miyuki thought grimly.
In her anxiety and worry, Bellkuld had forgotten that she was in Skuld's body. She just wanted to be with her Keiichi and see him to safety. With the winds almost blowing her small frame over, she was filled with panic. Judging by the total shock and rage on the face of the two policewomen, she realized that she had said something she shouldn't have.
"I've gotten Keiichi in trouble again!" she thought with embarrassment.
"HEY!!! Forget about what *she said! He's *my* boyfriend! He's with *me*! The...shock of the storm...and then his accident...has unsettled my little sister," Skuldandy shouted above the increasing din of the storm's fury while pointing an accusing finger at Bellkuld.
Bellkuld flinched in astonishment as she heard this.
"My little sister sometimes gets a little carried away in her imagination! You know how young girls are...they often live in a fantasy life populated with fantasy boyfriends!" Skuldandy continued...and then she dipped down and *kissed Keiichi on the lips*!!! Not just a glancing peck on the lips...but a long lingering passionate kiss.
Bellkuld felt her jaw drop as a gasp froze in her throat!
Miyuki looked at the auburn-haired woman addressing her. She had been quiet the whole time, but now she was talking passionately, if also sensibly.
Natsumi sized up this new woman. She was light-complexioned with long tresses of light brunette hair. She was model-beautiful as well, but in a graceful wholesome sense. Natsumi thought she could see a resemblance between her and the tanned woman.
"Could they be sisters?" she wondered. Yet, despite her age, this new woman seemed to be childish in the way she carried herself.
Miyuki felt her resentment wash away in the rain at this new revelation.
"I shouldn't have suspected you," she said silently in apology to the semiconscious Keiichi.
Bellkuld looked at Skuldandy with a wordless expression of gratitude. Skuldandy...Skuld...had just rescued her from an extremely awkward situation! But Bell could detect the hint of sarcasm in her little sister's voice as she said, "gets carried away." Skuldandy smiled at her, in total control and satisfaction; "you owe me bigtime, sis!" written large in her expressive eyes.
"Do you want to go with him to the hospital?" Miyuki offered.
"No...you guys have enough on your hands already. Take good care of him...or I'll bomb ya!" the brunette gaijin said.
"She *is* childish!" Natsumi concluded.
Miyuki turned to face Bellkuld with a stern countenance.
"Young lady, you shouldn't *ever* tell stories like that! He is your sister's boyfriend, not yours! In our modern society, it is immoral and illegal for a little girl your age to be involved with an adult. Please try to consider the consequences of things that you say...before you say them! By misleading us, you nearly got your sister's boyfriend in lots of trouble! It doesn't pay to be dishonest, especially to the police! Make a sincere effort to be more truthful from now on," she lectured vigorously.
The two policewomen deftly lifted the stretcher; accompanied by the crowd of students, the group walked carefully to the police car. The winds buffeted them, making the effort laborious. The small Honda was rocking in the wind. Fastening the stretcher in the back, they closed the hatch and quickly rushed back into the safety of their car. Waving at the odd assembly who were standing on a deck under the eaves on, Miyuki and Natsumi pulled out to the street.

* * * * * * * *

I looked at Bellkuld with tacit concern. She was like a solar eclipse...all her lively vivacity had disappeared with the barbwire memory of Keiichi's accident. Urd and Skuldandy were holding her tightly between them. For once, it seemed that being in Skuld's small frame was an advantage...she could be smothered with love by her two sisters.
The supertyphoon was wailing all around us, a wall of screaming elements clashing with our little temple. I was surprised that the temple was holding up so well against the storm, and then realized that it hadn't lasted all these centuries because of shoddy construction. I wondered how many storms and fires the temple complex had weathered in its eight centuries of existence.
I knew that the most deadly part of the hurricane wasn't the winds or the torrential rains. It was the storm surge. In the middle of a tropical storm, the reduced atmospheric pressure around the center of the cyclonic cloud pattern would cause the ocean to 'bubble up', withdrawing the tide from the shore. But once the storm made landfall, the bubble would 'burst' and the tidal waters would rush in, devastating the shore line.
My memory took me to a place several years ago. I was watching scenes from a hurricane landfall in the Mainland over the internet. The storm surge had pushed the tideline in at least 200 yards, flooding everything in sight. With a supertyphoon the size of Akira, the water could flood in several kilometers. We were only two kilos from the oceanside. However, to our good fortune, the Makuhari Messe Exhibition Center was right alongside the ocean. In one sense, this huge complex might provide a man-made barrier for the tidal swell. Perhaps that was why we weren't too flooded out. Bulldozers had been working around-the-clock prior to the storm to create artificial levees and shorebank barriers to reduce the storm surge flooding. Those must have made an impact as well. But my hunch was that the Makuhari Messe would be severely damaged by the storm.
The air was vermilion with barely contained atmospheric violence.

* * * * * * * *

The ride to Chiba Prefectural Hospital with Miyuki and Natsumi was an adventure in agony for Keiichi. However, despite the sharpness of the pains in his body, he was able to turn his head and survey the indiscriminate destruction caused by the supertyphoon. It was like nothing he had ever seen or could even imagine! Seeing the damage, he was reminded of the film he saw this past summer at Peace Park in Hiroshima that depicted the city right after the bombing. This wasn't *that* bad...but this was *definitely* in the disaster category.
There was so much devastation that his mind was overwhelmed trying to categorize it. Lying on his back in the police car, he could see whole sections of roofs that were collapsed or torn off. Storefronts were smashed; vending machines were blown onto the streets. Trees were broken or uprooted. Even the cement power and telephone poles had been knocked down. Power lines littered the streets. In some places, the water crested over the hood of the police car. And the streets...were like rivers!
As a skilled racer, Keiichi noticed that Miyuki was an expert driver; she avoided downed power lines and debris with the practiced moves of a pro. Keiichi wondered if she had been in a racing club when she was in college or in the police academy. As they made numerous detours due to impassable obstacles, he realized that she had avoided all the street-borne debris without making any sharp turns or sudden braking...no doubt in deference to his injuries.
He was amazed that she was doing this...in a severe storm...without headlights!
Keiichi noticed that the other policewoman, Natsumi, had her eyes glued to the road as well, calling out potential driving hazards and checking the onboard computer display for changes in route. It was obvious to him that their partnership was forged on solid teamwork. Their car was buffeted by the violent winds, but Miyuki's driving was smooth and precise. With dawning respect, he realized that she was much more skilled as a driver than anyone he had ever met.
"*This* is the ultimate hazardous driving condition, and she's handling it with total confidence!" he thought with frank admiration. His respect increased as she conversed with him, trying to help him ignore his toothgrit pain.

* * * * * * * *

En route to the hospital, Natsumi talked with their passenger, Keiichi, about his school and other personal matters...in an effort to keep him conscious and coherent. This ride was going to take a while; she was unfamiliar with the streets here...and the Global Positioning Display was useless! The GPD couldn't account for all the streets that were trashed by the storm. The very first street that led to the hospital was a dead-end...a *two-storey house* had been blown off its foundation, blocking the street! She was feeling lost, trying to rely on sight alone.
"This storm is tearing up the city *bad*!" she said with a grim expression to Miyuki. Natsumi had been the one who had performed most of the weatherproofing duties at their apartment while Miyuki had worked overtime at the station and kept an eye on Ken. Her partner was looking more than a little tired...Miyuki had spent many extra hours working on the computer network so it wouldn't crash during the upcoming storm. She said a silent prayer that they would get to the hospital safe and sound...and that their apartment would still be in one piece when the storm was over.
Miyuki watched Natsumi as she toweled their passenger's face off and kept him talking. As his spiky hair dried, it dawned on her that she recognized him from somewhere...but she couldn't quite place it. To her delight, she learned that the young student was an aficionado of vehicles. A fellow motorcycle buff.
But there was something about his face...it seemed *so* familiar...
In the hour she had been driving, Miyuki had animatedly engaged Keiichi in esoteric shop talk whenever she could. It helped her concentrate on her driving. She probed him with technical questions and ascertained that he was a very knowledgeable mechanic to boot. But then...Natsumi was giving her *that* look again...the look of impatience that her partner assumed when she felt that Miyuki was ignoring her.
Miyuki had to keep talking...these driving conditions were supercharging her nerves! Wondering what was the source of all his knowledge, she asked him if he was in a driving club or something.
"Yeah, I'm the driver for N.I.T.'s Motor Cycle Club," he answered, his voice wracked with pain.
"EHHHH?!!!
"Natsumi, what did he say his name was?"
"Uh...Keiichi! You've only been calling him by his name for the last hour, while ignoring me!" Natsumi answered in an owlly voice.
"No, you dope! His *surname*! What did he say his last name was?" Miyuki asked, irritated.
"Let me try to remember. Mori... something. Moriyama? No...that's not it. Morisake? No...ah! Now I remember! He said his name was Morisato. Keiichi Morisato!" Natsumi answered.
Miyuki looked at Natsumi with a shocked expression. Her eyes went wide with sudden realization...and she almost slammed on the brakes from surprise.
"Ohmygod!!! That's *him*! He's the driver...for *the* motor club!" she thought, her emotions whirling even tighter with this discovery.
Natsumi had been co-piloting, keeping her eyes keen on all the junk on the road and checking Keiichi for any signs of worsening physical shock. She noticed her partner's sudden change in demeanor...and the near collision with a downed concrete pole.
"Miyuki, what's wrong? You look like you just saw Yusaku Matsuda walking out in the storm!" Natsumi asked, whispering her question in a quiet voice, so that their passenger wouldn't overhear. Yusaku Matsuda was one of Japan's top male actors...a true idol. Natsumi had one of his photo calendars in her room.
"Natsumi...that guy back there...he's *Keiichi Morisato*!" Miyuki whispered back with all the enthusiasm of a gossip.
"Huh? Duh! I just told you that! He already told us his name, space case!" Natsumi whispered in a level voice.
"No, you don't *understand*, Natsumi! He's the guy! You know...the guy who won the Solar Energy race last spring! Remember? Remember how I was all upset because we weren't assigned to patrol the race because we had to deal with that damned idiot Strikeman again? And then we got home and I watched the tape of it and accidentally pitched that orange juice over your blouse when the Japanese team won. Remember?"
"That was *no* accident, that was you going out of your mind with excite...waitaminute! You're telling me that *he's* the driver of that team of misfit college students that *won* that race?" Natsumi asked in an incredulous voice.
Miyuki jerked her thumb to point backwards and nodded her head.
"*He's the guy!!*" she announced.
"WAHH!!! No way!" Natsumi near shouted. "That's *him*?" Bubbling with shock, she put a gloved hand over her mouth to cover her gasp of surprise. Miyuki saw her friend's reaction and nodded her head in confirmation.
"My God! He's like...a total *celebrity*! His face was all over the papers and magazines after that race! He beat out all those other racers...despite impossible odds! Everybody in Japan knows about his team from N.I.T.!"
"Yeah! He's the driver for that Motor Club, the one the press were calling 'The Misfits'!" Miyuki added. Suddenly, this 'ambulance ride' had taken a detour into an extremely interesting realm! Miyuki silently hoped that Natsumi would keep mum about the magazine clipping of Keiichi tacked on the living room wall posterboard.
The two women had started off in whisperings, but now they were getting louder and louder as Miyuki made yet another detour.
"Oooo...I *have* got to get his autograph!" Natsumi said excitedly. Then she pouted.
"What?" Miyuki asked, noticing the dejected look on her face.
"Dammit! He's got a girlfriend already!" Natsumi combed through her pert hairdo with her fingers. "Yet...I wonder if I could change his mind? A college guy like him would probably really groove on an older woman like me; a woman with lots of experience in the arts of love..."
"You're not *that* much older than him! He's gotta be 24, maybe 25. You're 27, Natsumi! For all we know, he may have more experience than *you*!" Miyuki quipped back, just to see how her partner would react.
"He doesn't look like the type! In fact...he looks like *my* type!" Natsumi snapped back.
"Oh...my confused partner in crimefighting...you must be talking about someone else! It ain't you, Natsumi! Don't confuse fickle with experienced," her close friend teased.
Natsumi narrowed her eyes at Miyuki.
"You better thank your stars that you're my best friend, Miyuki, otherwise..." Natsumi growled in a low voice.

*Cough, cough*

Keiichi was listening to the conversation between the two policewomen with a mixture of embarrassment and pride. Despite the shocking amount of pain he was in, he felt enlivened because the two women had recognized him from the Solar Car race. He was also flattered that one of them sensed that he had romantic potential. But it became embarrassing when one of the policewomen had made that comment about the "arts of love." Keiichi had always felt uneasy when women would refer to him in the objective sense as someone who was sexually attractive...as if he was some kind of object of feminine lust or desire. Then, his shyness would always rear up and he would be left speechless. Sayoko had done this to him innumerable times in high school and college.
Even though he was in medical shock, he smiled to himself when he heard the other woman's rapier-sharp comeback. Then he coughed diplomatically to try and prevent the conversation from declining into baser realms. Besides, he was already with an older woman...a *much* older woman.
"Ahhh, we're here!" Miyuki said excitedly.
As the two policewomen carried him in on the stretcher, Keiichi sensed his heart fill with gratitude. He had never encountered the police before, at least not to this degree. These two policewomen had taught him that law enforcement personnel were people, too.
Once inside the emergency lobby, the hospital staff admitted him promptly into a packed triage unit.
They gently placed him on a rolling bed. Keiichi winced with sharp pain at this, as the nurses immediately gave him some painkillers. They took him to an exam room, informing him that they were going to X-ray him. The two policewomen followed him into the room to wait on him.
"You're incredible!" he admitted to Miyuki. "I've *never* seen anyone drive so well...you were so skilled in the way you navigated past all those obstacles! I hope that I can be as good as you someday..."
Miyuki felt herself blushing at his compliment. Keiichi complimented Natsumi as well. He obliged the two of them by sketching little cartoon drawings of his solar racer, then autographing his art. Natsumi was beside herself with joy.
"Ya know...maybe you should consider signing up for the Traffic Division once you graduate from N.I.T. You would make a great addition to our force..." Natsumi suggested.
"Yes, with your driving skills, you would fit right in. In fact, you might make *us* look bad," Miyuki added, her smile broadening as the young college student turned beet red.
"It was nice meeting you, Keiichi Morisato! Thanks for the autographs. We have a kindergarten class of kids who'll really be happy to get them...once we get all the storm damage cleared up," Natsumi said. Both policewomen bowed to him, then waved goodbye and went back to work.
"Wait until we tell the folks at the office about *this*," Natsumi said wearily as they hit the road again in their smashed up Honda.

* * * * * * * *

Gradually, the supertyphoon relented. A typhoon comes in waves; powerful storming followed by periods of lighter rain and winds. This was due to the structure of the storm...concentric storm cells radiating around the eye. It seemed to last forever, but eventually the radio informed us that the worst was over.
As the winds died down for one last time, an eerie silence followed. There was no birdsong, no traffic, no wind-rustled leaves, and no conversation...just a pervading, profound quietude.
And the neverending rain...
As stillness gripped the outside, we on the inside of the temple house were quiet as well. Words could not describe what had happened today.
The rains continued into the late evening, but the damage had been done. Everyone looked like survivors from a train wreck. There was a tightwire sort of edginess to each face. A couple of hours later, Urd had enough energy to resume her normal stature.
Urd was looking intently at Mjolnir, then her sisters.
"Bellkuld, I know what you're thinking...that you want to check on Keiichi. But you need to have faith that he's safe. The phone lines are down, and we're all emotional basketcases here," she reasoned.
Bellkuld listened to her heart...and knew clairepresently that Keiichi *was* safe. It still didn't lessen the trauma of seeing his face shaking in pain after falling off that ladder. She knew that many beings were suffering in the aftermath of the supertyphoon...but her sense of loss was agonizingly tight and real.
Urd hugged her again.
"Let's get you and Skuld back to where you belong," she said.
Urd walked down the hall to her "Urd's Castle" room. The shoji door was ripped out of its slider. She sighed to herself, expecting the storm damage in her lab to be similar to that in the living room. She was relieved to see that there was minimal damage, other than the fact that everything was soaked and strewn on the floor. Nothing *too* serious. Grabbing the three potted black orchids, she returned to the living room.
They were harmless in this state, but Urd knew that these three plants were exact clones of one that caused Belldandy and Skuld to switch bodies. Once they applied the electrical charges from Mjolnir, the plants would spray their noxious potion and reverse whoever was in range of the spore cloud. It would re-reverse Skuld and Belldandy back into their proper bodies.
"Then I can burn these motherfuckers," Urd thought, seething with resentment. Her alchemical skills had been taxed to the utmost as she worked to duplicate the Black Orchids. She had applied herself whole-heartedly to this task for several weeks. Bonding a spell to a chemical potion was inherently complex by nature, requiring an exact balance of arcane magic and alchemical properties. Creating an organic delivery system was even more difficult. The intermix of chemical, alchemical and arcanical skills required expertise in several areas of magic. Further, the potion itself created a permanent mind-spirit separation *and* transference, which was patently difficult to reverse. Finally, the potion had been developed to be effective on *Goddesses*! Urd had to comb her way through labyrinthine enigmas to arrive at her finished clones. An extreme amount of magical knowledge and skill had been employed to create the whole package.
"There's no way that Mara could have come up with *this*!" Urd told herself as she examine the fruits of her labor. The subtlety and abstruseness of the Black Orchid was far beyond Mara's magical spellmaking capabilities. After all, Mara was only Urd's age...and Urd had *barely* been able to create clones of the plants herself. Also, unlike Mara who was a Grief Office agent, Urd was a Sysop; her job required specialization in arcane matters, since the computers on Yggdrasil were run on nine levels of programming, one of which involved arcane coding. She reasoned that Mara must have employed some big-league help...or even worse, someone else was responsible for this. The baleful nature of the Black Orchid and it potion reeked of Demonic involvement.
"Whoever cooked this up is extremely devious and clever," Urd commented as she brought the plants into the living room.
Bellkuld and Skuldandy visibly paled as the she arranged the plants in a triangular pattern on a soaked futon. Shaking tremulously, the two Goddesses withdrew away from the evil-looking plants, the memories of their initial encounter with the foul noxious plant clinging resiliently in their minds.
"Hey, you guys are supposed to be in the middle of these, not hiding away in the dining room! They're harmless at the moment, so long as Mjolnir isn't near them," Urd offered, trying to comfort and encourage at the same time.
The two Goddesses timidly splashed forward to stand between the assembly of plants. The water was at least a foot deep in the house, and Urd was worried that this flood would create problems for the transference process.
"Urd, it's nice that you want to make us feel comfortable...but could you please *hurry up*! Being near this...thing...makes me feel horrible," Bellkuld stated, grillcased with anxiety.
"C'mon, let's get this over with. Power up Mjolnir and bring it over," Skuldandy added in a shaky voice.
"Power it up? HOW? The lights are out!" Urd said, feeling a desperate icy chill running down her back.
"With the portable power supply that I put together right before the storm hit!" Skuldandy said.
"Why didn't you tell me that...*before*!" Urd said, lightly cuffing Skuldandy on the head. Skuldandy went to her lab to find it. Some of her mechas had been knocked off of shelves and tables, but for the most part, things looked okay. She found the portable power amplifier and returned with it. She attached the small unit to the handle of Mjolnir. Her power amp was only six inches long, but she knew that it could discharge up to 4 gigawatts of energy for a ten-second burst of power.
More than enough to 'jump start' the potential EM charge in the Ixodenum of Skuld's mallet that was generated by one or more lightning strikes.
"You guys should sit on the floor," Urd suggested, not wanting either Goddess to lose consciousness, fall down, and knock over a plant. Both sat on the floor, waist deep in the cesspool. Urd set the timer for 5 seconds, which would give her ample time to set it in between her two sisters. She dashed up and set it squarely between Bellkuld and Skuldandy.
"I guess this means Sayoko's gonna know for sure about our little secret," Urd thought as she watched. A series of sparks sprayed out from the mallet, forming a showering green field a split-second later. Megumi, Genji, Tomohisa, Sayoko and Cevn stood far away, their faces illuminated by the bright glow. Shards of blue lighting arced between Mjolnir and the three plants.
Skuldandy and Bellkuld both slumped to the floor as the three Black Orchids ejected plumes of black spore clouds. The combination of green luminescence and black pungent smoke created a lightshow that held all in rapt admiration.
"Come on! *Work*!" Urd muttered repeatedly under her breath. The lightglow faded from the air, and a breeze from the front door dissipated the black cloud, wafting it out one of the broken windows. Urd was clenching her fists so hard that her fingernails threatened to break.

* * * * * * * *

She gradually arrived at consciousness after the spinning sensation ceased. She looked up to see Urd and the others, who were all watching her intently. She immediately looked down her front...and saw that her bust had replaced the flat chest she was used to. Her body *felt* right again! She ran her hands down her front and hips, feeling the roundness and fullness that hadn't been there before. Then she reached to the side of her head and pulled a long strand of hair to view.
It was a soft light brown.

* * * * * * * *

She felt herself awakening with a slight tingly feeling in her body. Her head felt like a marble, but she put the sensation aside and looked down. She saw two slender legs...and no breasts! Excited, she wiggled her feet, feeling a lightness in her body that had been missing for a long time. She examined her lithe hands, noticing how petite and delicate her fingers were. Then she looked around the room, and saw *her*. Her older sister...as she should be.
"I'm *me* again!" she sighed with total relief.

* * * * * * * *

The two Goddesses slowly sat up, looked at each other, then started to laugh giddily as they realized that they were back into their *own* bodies!
"It's you!" they both said between fits of laughter as they pranced around each other.
Urd felt tears coming to her eyes as she walked over to hug her sisters.
Belldandy and Skuld.

* * * * * * * *

The scene of the reunited trio of Goddesses brought tears to my eyes. I uselessly wiped my tears on an already-soaked shirt sleeve. Looking at all of our faces, I saw that everyone's cheeks had tear lines, except for Sayoko...whose face belied frank astonishment.
After a few minutes, I went over and hugged Belldandy and Skuld.
I suggested that we do a 'swarm hug' on the pair. I learned about this during one of my stays in a treatment center. Each person in the treatment center had to face their deepest fears and share their 'life history' with the group. Once they were finished, members of the group would offer feedback and comments on their life's story. At the end of the group session, everyone would surround the emotionally exhausted patient with a mass hug. We surrounded Belldandy and Skuld with our bodies, tightly pinning them in and patting them on the back.
I could see the worry on Belldandy's face in the midst of the celebratory air.
"We have one more thing to do!" Urd announced. "Then the spell will be completely reversed." Belldandy, Skuld and the rest of us looked at her with doubtful expressions.
What now?
"Let's burn these cursed things!" Urd shouted with a smile. She handed a book of matches to each of her sisters and ushered us outside.
She set the three plants down on one of the few places in the yard that wasn't under water. Then she pulled a vial from her sleeve, opened it, and poured some kind of powdery substance on each of the three plants. To me, this strange action offered the impression that she was salting them; but I knew that she had something up her sleeve, pun intended.
"Ready, my sisters?"
"YEAH!" we all shouted in encouragement.
"Throw a match on them, then run back to the house!" she warned.
Uh-oh. I knew from the manga that Urd and incendiary devices did not share a concordant nature. In other words, quite often, her acts of flammation turned out worse than Skuld's "Skuld bomb" miscues. Urd was running on the Yggdrasilian equivalent of pure adrenaline...she was almost as flighty as Skuld.
Belldandy and Skuld threw their matches on the plants and we rushed to the house for shelter.
"Thank Goddess that the house is wet," I mumbled, "at least then it can't catch on fire!" Urd gave me a sharp glance until she saw that I was teasing her.

*Boom* *Crackle* *Whzzzzbam* *Zlam* *Kaching*

The dreaded Black Orchids exploded in a brilliant display of colorful reports, shooting huge fireballs high into the sky. We watched, captivated, as the plant's destruction evolved into a fireworks display.
"YAHOOOOOOOOO!" we screamed.
I started clapping loudly, and the others joined in. Belldandy and Skuld had very satisfied looks on their faces. Then they both started jumping up and down in a cheer. Belldandy had been an N.I.T. Motor Club cheerleader any number of times, and Skuld had watched her older sisters cheer enough to copy her moves.
Once more, my friends had turned tragedy into triumph, at least a little triumph for today. I knew that Makuhari was heavily storm damaged...and Keiichi was in the hospital.
But somehow, I felt confident that everything would be all right.
"Wh..what are you guys?" Sayoko stammered, confusion woven into her exhausted mien.

* * * * * * * *

"Well, the X-rays disclosed that you have compound fractures of the tibia and fibula in both legs, along with four broken ribs, a punctured left lung, and a cracked collarbone," the doctor stated in a matter-of-fact voice.
Keiichi looked down at his legs. The doctors had cut away his jeans to reveal two very battered legs. He was too shocked by the fall and the ride to the hospital to be surprised by his injuries, or the sight of his legs. With an almost dispassionate curiosity, he noticed sharp ends of bone protruding out of each leg.
"We've given you something for the pain and x-rayed you...we're going to have to operate to set the broken bones in your legs properly."
"O..okay," he answered, feeling almost sleepy after the administration of the pain killers. The anesthesiologist injected him with something, then told him to count back from ten...

* * * * * * * *

Belldandy was still giddy after the return to her own body. She tried out her powers, wanting to fix the damage to the temple as quickly as she could, then transport herself to Keiichi's side.
Nothing happened.
Urd and Skuld watched hopefully as their sister, the only one whose license hadn't been suspended, attempts to cast a few spells.
Something was *very* wrong.
With disbelief, Belldandy turned to her sisters.
"I *still* don't have my powers!" she said in utter disappointment.
"What *are* you talking about? W..who are you people?" Sayoko asked, still overwrought by what she'd just seen after the storm relaxed its grip on us.

* * * * * * * *