Ah My Goddess Fan Fiction ❯ Trial By Tenderness ❯ Part 37 - Headspin ( Chapter 37 )

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

Part 37 Headspin


TOKYO, JAPAN - OCT 2049:

Megumi was half-asleep, barely hearing the sonorous humming of servos as the robots delivered breakfast. This was an intermittent routine that highlighted their day, but yet also reminding them of the tedium. The door in the end of the hallway would appear; two robots would roll down the hall into the dining room with stacked trays of food. However, sometimes their meals would simply appear in a niche in the dining room wall accompanied by a series of musical tones.
"Why do they use a robot to deliver our meals some of the time, and at other times use that slot in the wall?" she asked Sayoko while munching on a pastry roll. It was funny that she was just now feeling irritated about this.
"I noticed the same thing. Seems odd, doesn't it?"
"There's *a lot* of things which are odd. You would expect the same kind of consistency that you'd find in a hospital...but our captors, whoever they are, are almost flaky," Megumi noted. Once more, this launched rapid-fire conjecturing about such enigmas as the strange meal schedules, the late night visits by the robots, and the possible identity of the invisible anonymities that were confining them.
"It's a miracle that we aren't drowning in paranoia!" Sayoko commented. Megumi was bored, so she started in on the robots. She and Sayoko often joked around as their meals were being delivered, saying cheap stock romanji phrases like "more caviar, Jeeves" and "where is the poupon, Jasper?" The robots would ignore their jests and attend to their duties with an attitude of mechanistic aloofness. The metallic silence made the whole mealtime scenario even more hilarious to the two women.
But this time, the automatons didn't leave them as soon as they delivered the girl's meal trays. Instead, they withdrew into a corner of the room and waited, like hunched armored gargoyles. Instantly alert, Megumi felt her nerves crisply unraveling...she didn't like being watched. Especially while eating. Especially during durance.
Unconsciously, Megumi rapidly wolfed down her meal, eating much faster than Sayoko did. When Sayoko finished eating, one robot collected the trays while the other extracted a mini-DVD from a panel on its chest.
"Your host has recorded this hyperinfo database for your convenience. Please utilize the UDVD player in the living room quarters at your convenience to view this personal message," it announced in an emotionless voice as it placed the disk on the table.
Megumi looked at Sayoko with surprise. She started to reach out to grab the disk, but then she glimpsed Sayoko gesturing "no" with her hands. Megumi caught herself in mid-reach, and then sat back down at the dining table, grinning innocuously at the departing robot. After the robot left, she looked at Sayoko with a wordless questioning. Sayoko cleared her throat and began to justify her attitude of cautious reticence.
"We don't want to lend the impression that we're too anxious to find out who's behind all of this, Megumi. That would tip our hand. We need to remain nonchalant...otherwise we end up buying into the captor-hostage mentality that our 'host' wants us to believe. And you can bet that we're under some kind of video surveillance," she explained, grateful for all those classes she took in hostage survival techniques. Necessary classes, for the only daughter of one of Japan's richest families.
Megumi nodded her head at this; Sayoko was making sound sense.
Concealing their enthusiasm, the two women leisurely went into the living room and slipped the mini-UDVD into the player.
"Ultra Definition TV," Megumi commented as the screen showed a focusing palette. "You would think they would give us something a little bit more modern...this must be an antique by 2049 standards."
The TV was 'generic'; possessing no identifying information. Several days earlier, Megumi and Sayoko had lifted it up, noticing that it seemed to weigh significantly less than a television *should* weigh. Megumi had wondered about its presence in the common room, as they were unable to watch TV at all. No videos or disks had been provided, and it was quickly apparent that the broadcast channels were being blocked. Also, the TV chassis itself seemed to be designed with the same seamless metal that the walls were made of. Neither girl could even see inside of it, let alone try to disassemble it.
"I wonder what it meant when it said 'hyperinfo database'?" Megumi asked.
"Well, we're going to find out. This is where we learn about our situation," Sayoko said as she pressed "play" on the remote. After a momentary flicker, a face appeared.
"TOSHIYUKI!" both girls gasped simultaneously. "AOSHIMA!"
Sayoko was so discomfited by the image on the TV that she dropped the remote. She felt herself slipping away on a wave of astonishment. She was looking at her cousin...only this was an older version of him! An anger drifted into her consciousness so rapidly that she thought she was going to spin nauseous. She looked over and saw that Megumi was tightly gripping the armrest of the couch she was sitting on...almost paralyzed with a sudden onset of insecurity.

"Greetings, my cousin Mishima Sayoko. And to you as well, Morisato Megumi.
You are probably experiencing a high level of anxiety at the
moment, so I will courteously wait for it to pass."

Megumi looked at Sayoko, esteeming by the facefallen expression of her friend that her own face must be registering an equal amount of disturbed shock. It definitely was Aoshima...but this man had a steelsharp expression borne out of a sharkpit. His almost delicate face was aged, but the hardness of his facial features was disconcerting. He was dressed in one of those cheesy rainbow striped suits that he used to sport at N.I.T. Megumi was even more anxious when she saw the naked acquisitiveness in his dark eyes.
After a full minute, the scene shifted to a photomosaic as Aoshima's voice continued:

"Welcome to 2049. You are a guest of the Toshishima Imperium. I am Director Aoshima. It *has* been a long time, hasn't it?
The reason I have invited you here is because you are now
the property of the Toshishima Imperium. Imagine my surprise when my associates found you...after a *40-year* disappearance. They brought you to the medical wing of my headquarters, where you are now being treated so graciously as my guests. Your presence here can only indicate two possibilities.
First, there is the possibility that you have somehow
traveled forward in time to the present year. We have long suspected the physical potential for time travel, but have never had the chance to research live specimens who have actually survived time travel. All our attempts to project subjects a mere *five* minutes into the past or future have resulted in the deaths of all such human subjects. Naturally, we were pleased to have this unprecedented opportunity to examine you in an attempt to comprehend why you survived while all other human subjects in our experimental trials expired.
Second, there exists the possibility that you both possess a unique antiagathic agent. Some kind of physiological trait which has arrested your aging process these last forty years. We have verified your ages by a variety of means, and each measurement indicates conclusively that you both are over sixty years old. You are both miraculously preserved specimens, and we intend to examine you both to determine what is responsible for your longevity. We at Toshishima Imperium are creators of miracles.
Obviously, if either of these possibilities are indeed verifiable through rigorous research...your value to us is enormous. Once we discover the scientific reasons that explain your presence here 40 years after you disappeared, then we will be able to offer another line of breakthrough technology to our consumers. This is why you have been kept in total isolation from all other human beings. We would not want you to be contaminated by exposure to humans of our era, or to possibly contaminate others, if your 'non-aging' attributes are indeed communicable. This would defeat the whole purpose of isolating the agents responsible for your youth; we would rather market any 'youthening cure' than give it away, of course. Oh, and we don't want one or both of you escaping.
Consider yourselves my honored guests."

"I..I can't believe this!" Sayoko said in a voice strained with emotion. "And he isn't even going to tell us about himself?" The image changed to a logo that read "Toshishima Imperium" with a picture of Aoshima dressed in pseudo-samurai court dress. Both girls looked at each other, rolling their eyes at this display of smarmy vanity.

"Request granted. This data disk is hyperlinked to spoken
keywords. If you want additional information about a certain
aspect of the Imperium, simply speak a brief phrase, and that
context will become available.

You have requested more information about the Toshishima
Imperium and its executive director, Toshiyuki Aoshima.

Director Aoshima founded the Corporation, later known as the Imperium, in 2007. The following year, he withdrew from N.I.T. and married. In the next two years, corporate strategy was directed at revolutionizing the lucrative entertainment industry in order to gain control of leisure activities of citizens. To accomplish this, Director Aoshima patented holographic video technologies that were years in advance of any designs by other manufacturers. This galvanized a stagnant entertainment industry, significantly impacting how movies, music and holovision are consumed by citizens today.

In 2010, the Imperium focused on information control allware. Director Aoshima developed a molecular gating data chip, which rendered binary and hexadecimal computing protocols obsolete, while advancing computer speeds a thousandfold. During this time, as you may recall, the inefficient Windows graphical operating system was in the midst of a technological slowdown. Dynamic link library glut, corrupt file operating systems, widespread virusing were some indicators of the stagnation of the computing status quo. Programmers were evolving application software more advanced that the operating software. We at Toshishima remedied this situation. Concurrent with the advance in computer hardware technology, an operating system that could handle processor speeds of 250K GHz was necessitated. In response to this need, the Toshishima Corporation developed the Frameworx intuitive operating system to meet the new standards of computer processing.

In 2013, Director Aoshima acquired Microsoft Inc., Sony
International, Disney Universal and Intel. He reorganized
Toshishima Corp's assets and renamed the corporation with the
name it is known by today:

The Toshishima Bakufu Imperium.

In 2015, Director Aoshima completed a five-year strategy to monopolize transportation technology by unveiled the first gravity repulsion device, allowing for the construction of larger ships, more aesthetically pleasing buildings, larger spacecraft and aircraft. Also, the Imperium rolled out the first line of hovercars to coincide with the newly introduced technology.
Focusing next on energy production and consumption, Director Aoshima authorized the next five-year plan to develop alternative energy technologies. The Shanghai, Denver and Sao Paulo Nuclear Disasters in 2016-8 brought to light the problems involved with increased demands upon the Earth's fossil fuel resources coupled with aging nuclear fission plants. The energy crisis of 2021 was averted by the Toshishima Imperium's development of nuclear fusion reactors.To date, over 2300 Toshishima reactors have been built on the Earth, Moon and Mars.
The next five-year corporate strategy was focused on nanotechnology, with applications towards...Interrupt!
Disengagement protocol activated, redaction of information regarding corporate strategies post-2020 authorized, security censor proximals initiated.
Resume! Today, in 2049, The Toshishima Imperium has over 700 subcorporate entities on all three planets. A sampling of acquistions includes Sony-Warner, Microsoft, NHK, NGN, Toyota, Hyundai, General Motors, IBM,Paramount Pictures and Columbia TriStar, the NBA, the NFL, the United Baseball League, Abbott Genetix, McDonalds, Citicorp, Eurocorp, BMG Intl. and TanDram Foods.
In addition, the Toshishima Imperium's political subdivisions maintain a majority of seats in both houses of the Japanese Diet, as well as significant majorities in the Reorganized States of China, the United States Congress, the Russian Federation, and many others nations. Toshishima directors serve as heads of state in over 50 nations. The Toshishima Imperium holds patents on over 12 million products, including..."

"Shutup shutup SHUT UP!" Megumi said, her voice escalating with barely repressed disgust. The mindnumbing rapid fire of oppressive information sickened her. It wasn't enough to stop up her ears...she couldn't ignore what she had just heard. The TV politely noted to her that it was "rude to interrupt a requested Toshishima Imperium presentation", then switched to an animated Toshishima Imperium logo.
Sayoko looked at Megumi with a brief moment's thankful expression, and then lapsed back into anxious supposition. It was too much to even imagine! Her cousin Toshiyuki...head of some kind of supercorporation? How? If he was her cousin, why did he have to be so secretive? Why didn't he treat her with more respect? How much longer would they be locked up? Bakufu? Wasn't bakufu a term used in pre-modern Japan to refer to the shogunate military organization? Apparently, Toshiyuki considered his company to be a modern shogunate!
"Bakufu?" Megumi asked aloud in a voice weakened by the daunting amount of information. She was trying more for dramatic effect than anything else.
"Imperium?"
She remembered Cevn discussing in her Asian History class how the bakufu system was related to the centralized government of Song dynasty China. The bakufu possessed several tiers of bureaucratic administration. In the Muromachi and Ashikaga periods, a bakufu utilized jito and shugo to legitimize its lines of authority. Jito were the administrators who stewarded imperial and other private estates, while shugo were the provincial deputies who governed local concerns and occasioned duties of fealty in the capital. It occurred to her that Aoshima was doing the same thing...his 'jito' were the administrators of subcorporate entities while his 'shugo' were involved within the political realm as upholders of polity in the governmental bodies of many nations. The bakufu was very efficient from a historical perspective, lasting over 800 years as an ethical and political system. Aoshima had resurrected the bakufu in the mid-21st century...a new world order that centered upon him.
Megumi imagined that she might as well have been kidnapped by a UFO and taken to some alternate version of reality. Some nightmarishly twisted reality. But it *was* Aoshima...an aged version of the N.I.T. sophomore...but truly him. Aoshima as a de facto ruler of the planet, if the hyperinfo presentation could be trusted.
"No one could mimic his infernal arrogance," she thought. She looked back at Sayoko for comfort, only to find her roommate equally stunned and perplexed. A poignant silence filled the room. Then she realized that Sayoko was probably the worse for wear of the two women, because it was *her* cousin who was keeping them in captivity.
Like caged animals.
"Megumi...did you understand that?" Sayoko finally commented. "It makes my cousin out to be some kind of world leader."
"*That* is unbelievable! I still can't believe that it is Aoshima who is keeping us here!" Megumi blurted out her disbelief.
"**HOW?**" Sayoko asked in a voice filled with disconsolence.
"Sayoko, something is really bothering me about that presentation. The whole presentation was disturbing, but what really scares me is what he said before the brag-fest about his Imperium whatever! During the personal greeting segment, Aoshima clearly said that we were the *property* of his corporation!" Megumi said evenly. "Evidently, people can be owned in this present time..."
The TV spoke up unexpectedly, interrupting her jumbled thoughts.

"Query. Human Being Property Act of 2021. The Toshishima
Imperium advocated the HBPA to ensure that genetically unique
individuals or human specimens suspected of anomalized genomes
could be owned by private corporate interests.

By creating property agency for such unique humans,
appropriate research aims could be exploited by corporate
interests. This would ensure that advantageous genetic material
could undergo rigorous experimentation protocols before being
marketed to government pharmaceutical sanctioning boards.
Notwithstanding, vigorous results would then become
available for widespread market consumption by transnational
consumers..."

"Stop!" Megumi shouted. Each 'lecture' by the hyperdata cast a more evil and horrid air to their present situation. Megumi was appalled by the very thought of people being owned by other people. "This was even worse than slavery," she mentally recoiled.
"Sayoko, it's...*horrible*. Every fundamental human right is being circumvented. Can you believe how callous this is all sounding? We're little more than lab rats according to this damned video!" she agonized. Sayoko responded with a chilling observation of her own.
"Megumi, the whole justification of human beings as property...is rife with insouciance! What bothers me is how could people actually allow such a thing to happen? People owning people for the sake of their DNA? What kind of people are living in this time? What citizenry, or country for that matter...could stand by and allow such a coarse violation of the human spirit?" Sayoko asked with rhetorical desperation.
"This is the cold shoulder of destiny. Remember how the US was forcing soldiers in its military to provide DNA samples, which later became the property of the government? You know, back in '95 or '96?" Megumi said in a distant voice. "It was already happening in our times. Owner of animal DNA, for example."
Sayoko felt very somber cast to her mood. Her mind raced, considering the perplexing implications. She remembered watching "Drunken Angel" on one of the classic cinema channels a few weeks ago. Filmed in the early 1950s, the dramatic cast of the film created an atmosphere that seemed to originate from another world. The people were totally *primitive* in many ways. Their goabout daily lives, their attitudes, their morals and convictions contemporary to the 1950s...were a world away. Even her secret passion for rock music of the 60's and 70's was considered a very eclectic taste in the 21s, where most people were caught up in the latest idol stars and trends. Classical music was even more of a contrast between modern and old; compared to the uniformly percussive rockhop music of today, symphonies seemed to come from another mindset...one that was too elegant to exist in the early 21st century.
Now *she and Megumi* were 40 years into the future...and perhaps just as primitive.
"Are *we* considered primitive relics of a bygone culture to these people? How did the future go so bad?" she thought. Megumi looked at her concernedly...and Sayoko realized that she was visibly shuddering.
"If one is full of reality and yet there is more reality to experience, where does it all go?" Sayoko asked herself. She smiled as she remembered Cevn saying that it would go into insanity. Suddenly, she had a brilliant insight; a desperate attempt to furnish a diamond in the rough. Something to feel good about in the midst of this dismal mindcrunching mental assault. Perhaps this database included information about what happened to everyone she knew! She looked at Megumi, who was pacing back and forth in front of the wall-sized window overlooking the city.
Megumi felt in her mind that her personal morals had been stripped and raped by an invisible obscene force of injustice. She thought of herself as a small fish, exerting all of its strength in order to swim downstream...into an invisible net. It was all too futile! Thinking in silent loops, she curled up in a chair, her mind numbed into a "what's the difference?" mentality. Staring out the window at the ultramodern cityscape, she noticed that there was one thought that seemed to beacon itself in her mind, attracting attention like a piercing blue/red police siren.
"Holographic technology was only in its infancy back in 2006, but here, it was full blown. So what's so important about that?" she muttered to herself. Looking outside, she could see any number of floating holograms, usually advertising some product or showing some clips that Megumi assumed were newsbytes. Of course!!! She had only encountered technology at that level once before! She sat up in the chair and clutched a pillow to her breast.
"Sayoko, remember what I said about Belldandy, Urd and Skuld being Goddesses?" Sayoko nodded her head as she slid onto the opposite end of the couch and held a pillow to her breast, mimicking Megumi.
"Remember the youngest one, the little girl?"
"You mean Skuld?"
"Yeah, that's the one I mean! Skuld. She's a genius with technology. Remember that robot she built my freshman year, when we had that stupid Robot Wars competition that Tamiya and Ootaki set up?"
"Yeah...I always thought it was odd that a 12-year-old girl could build a robot that was more advanced than the best effort that most of the engineering students could turn out. No offense, Megumi."
"None taken of course, Sayoko. Besides I *won* the Robot Wars, remember?"
"Yeah, until she blew up your robot, heh heh heh!"
"*Don't* remind me about that childish stunt! Anyway, Skuld has all sorts of gear in the temple house we live in, including a souped-up computer that was able to hack into the US Defense system with ease..." she mentioned.
"No way!" Sayoko interrupted "Her?"
"And holographic floating screens. Holography *and* antigravity. Keiichi told me that she created some kind of extra-dimensional tesseract to double the space in one of the closets one time. Borrowing 'space' from another point in Time and combining it with the space from now to create a bigger area. You've met Sigel, right?"
"You mean the neighbor girl that sometimes stops to visit you guys?"
"No, I mean the robotic girl that Skuld built out of an old mechanical greeting mannequin. So life-like in behavior and looks that she completely fooled you into thinking that she was a real grade-school aged girl!" Megumi continued, noting that Sayoko's eyes were getting wider with each accomplishment she was listing off. "More recently, during Supertyphoon Akira, Skuld developed a handheld power source the size of a flashlight that generated several *gigawatts* of power! Are you starting to get the hang of what I'm saying..."
"Then, you think that my cousin got his hands on her advanced technology somehow...and then reverse engineered it?" Sayoko ventured. Megumi nodded her head in assent.
"Oh my...Goddess!" Sayoko said, covering her mouth with her hand at the implications of this fact. Megumi giggled at her slip of the tongue.
"If this is true, than this poses another question...and this one's a toughie," Sayoko said with a thoughtful expression. "If this disc is a hyperdata media, then...we might be able to find out what happened to the others."
"WHAT?" Megumi felt a fleeting feeling of bedazzlement at the idea. Suddenly she realized with a foreboding emotional grimace that this was the equivalent of peering into the crystal ball at a future that had *already* happened.
"I..I don't feel very comfortable with the possibility that we *could* find out about the others lives. What if...someone died, or was murdered? Would you want to know that your brother was killed in a car crash on the expressway? What if I found out that *my* brother died in a racing accident?" she said, feeling deeply reserved about the whole idea.
Sayoko had felt assured that she could handle the context of a future revealed. But a series of ghosting doubts arose as Megumi went on to explain several further worst case scenarios. This information about her cousin's activities wielded a grimness that was suffocating in the same way that a nightmare stole early waking moments with an incubus-like disregard. In this future present world, what other horrors existed?
She looked at Megumi, who was eyeing the mini-UDVD player with a trace of disgust on her face. Sayoko slowly shook her head. The future would have to wait. Or even worse. She watched silently as her friend pushed the eject button on the player. Megumi pulled the disc out of the tray, then snapped it in two and angrily tossed it against the wall.
"My feelings exactly, Megumi," Sayoko said as she hugged the only other *real* person in her world.

* * * * * * * *

OITA, KYUSHU, JAPAN - SEPT 1372:

It *had* to happen sometime.
I didn't think that it would have occurred so soon after we became guests of the Mori household...but yesterday it happened. The entire focus of the day shifted after that moment...like the kind of mental shift that occurs when a waiter drops a set of plates at a ritzy restaurant in mid-conversation. Entrancement.
Crash juggernaut.
We had just finished a working lunch, poring over designs components of the 'war chariot', when a bell sounded a series of gongs, followed by a wave of consternation and rapid footfalls on the wooden galleries encircling the daimyo's palace. Soon, a group of retainers burst into to our dining room and commanded us to attend to the Lord in his main meeting hall.
We were hurriedly escorted into the main room. As we sat down in our own little group at the back of the main audience hall, we saw several squads of retainers hastily assembling into formal positions on each side. It looked like some bizarre choreographed staging, a remnant of an image that belonged in a Kurosawa movie. Like dolls arrayed on a display for viewing. Buzzing like the late summer locusts.
A moment later, the Lordship stalked into the head of the room at a rapid clip and then seated himself on the raised dais with a flourish of his long sleeves. Three senior retainers produced a white cloth-wrapped box about three meters long and gently set it down in front of the Lord, and then bowed with an extra measure of respect.
"Is it a koto?" I heard Genji ask in a soft whisper. We quietly talked among ourselves, conjecturing as to what was concealed in the white wrapping. The eldest retainer carefully undid the white cloth and removed the lid of the box.
Curiosity turned into horror as I saw what was revealed. Four heads were mounted on a long wooden board. I felt my recently eaten lunch wretch halfway up as I gagged. With a supreme effort of will, I forestayed vomiting as the eldest retainer read from a short scroll.
"These four men were captured spying on our Lordship. They were posing as priests in Usuki. Before they were executed, they admitted to being mercenary assassins hired by our enemies, the Shimazu Clan. They confessed that they were spying on our Lord with the perfidious intent to take his life!" he announced in a dramatic voice. The hall burst with angry voices while Lord Mori examined the heads.
"This is outrageous! We must punish Shimazu! Kill all of them! How dare they threaten us! We should rally our forces and invade his fief! Insolent fools, how dare they anger us! Shimazu has proven his cowardice...we *must* not ignore this dishonor," the din of voices filled the hall with vociferous debate.
Lord Mori waved his hand to silence the throng of shouts. I felt a foreboding as he sat in moody silence. The fact that there was *four* heads on display wasn't lost on me, either.
"Life is a waking dream...it could have been *our* heads," I reflected. The sheer brutality of medieval Japan had just become tacitly real in that heavy quiet.
"How could this culture have ever produced anime and manga for entertainment 700 years hence...when it was sourced in martial attitudes like this?" the thoughts drummed in my mind. There it was. A quartet of heads on a wooden display board. I was profoundly grateful that I couldn't see their faces from where I was kneeling.
The room felt like it was a Navaho sweat tipi; it was dripwet soaked with emotional heat. I felt like a brush fire had just been fanned by a wind; now it was raging out of control. This was surreal...like some disjointed dream sequence. I looked at Keiichi, Genji and Tomohisa for the simple confidence of their presence. Their faces were fraught with disturbed expressions.
Suddenly, Lord Mori stood up. With a half turn, he spun on his heels and advanced to the ancestral armor suit mounted behind his seat cushion. With a reverent motion he lifted the bizen sword off of its mother-of-pearl inlaid display saddle. He pulled the sword out of its mount with exaggerated vigor and held it over his head. I had overheard that this sword was product of the Heian period, making it a venerable antique in this time.
This time...
For the first time, I had momentarily forgotten that 'this time' was actually six centuries in the past...of 99.9% of my life. But it was now...oppressively current, despite the fact that I had only been in 'this time' a few weeks. The gleam of the sword was *too* real.
"This...will not go unpunished! From this point onward, a state of war exists between the Mori Clan and the Shimazu Clan. We will ride the crest of our forefather's gallant honor until every last Shimazu is left kneeling in front of the Yama Kings in Hell!"
The effect was instantaneous. Lord Mori had made his choice and utilized the high fever of fervent emotion to solidify his appeal to his retainers. Loud whooping and yelling pierced the air as the retainers cheered each other and their Lord.
"My...God," I heard Keiichi mutter in between the raucous bravado that filled the main hall.

* * * * * * * *

Belldandy woke up as the klaxon signaled the dawn of a new day. She looked at Urd, who was sluggishly waking up. It seemed to her that her older sister was looking very exhausted lately. Skuld was still spry, but this was more an attribute of her youth than anything else. Sometimes Skuld could be irrepressibly happy, like when she was learning to ride her bike and levitate objects a year ago. Keiichi had called Skuld "terminally happy" during that summer month.
But Urd...Belldandy was becoming worried. Urd was becoming *depressed*. She was spending most of her days asleep; while awake, her capricious demeanor was greatly subdued. It was as if their captivity was draining Urd of her elan. This, alongside all of the fiats delivered by Aoshima. Each threat was like a pounding nail. It didn't help that gravity had been restored to their confinement chamber, forcing them to sleep on the floor. Of the three sisters, Urd was the 'floater'; the one who liked to float off the ground the most, even on the Earthrealm. Now, her older sister couldn't even do that. Belldandy sensed that Aoshima had restored gravity to punish Urd for some verbal slight during their captivity.
"Elder sister...you look so disheveled...so out of it," Belldandy said to herself, her blue eyes tinged with grave concern.
After an hour or so, the lights signaling breakfast illuminated the room with multihued flashes. The usual mealslot in the wall opened up and revealed three trays with very large covered plates. Belldandy and her sisters had followed the instructions given by the mysterious notes they had found in their trays several days ago. Each Goddess had complained vociferously that there wasn't enough to eat. After three days of cavility, their portions were doubled...then increased again yesterday. Which didn't please Belldandy at all; she had to *eat* all of the slop just to restore her power.
She floated over and pulled her tray out of the recessed slot in the wall. It seemed *light*, she noticed. With reluctance in the face of having to eat another huge portion of food, Belldandy gently pulled the cover off of the main plate.

**Crash**

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Skuld had dropped her tray.

* * * * * * * *

OITA, KYUSHU, JAPAN - OCT 1372:

Today was going to be an eventful day. Eventful, insasmuch as the grueling regimen of military training would continue...
Since the declaration of open hostilities between Lord Mori and Lord Shimazu, Keiichi and his time-traveling companions had found themselves subjected to the 14th-century equivalent of 'boot camp'.
Nothing he had experienced prepared him for the toughening up process he had endured over the next three months. One day, they were summoned to meet with Lord Mori's chief military chamberlain, who told them that they would be "tried rigorously" in order to become "of better service to the Lord".
Little could he, Genji, Cevn, or Tomohisa have suspected what *that* meant!
For the first day of their training, Keiichi and his friends had been force marched from sunrise to sunset in full suits of samurai armor. Each time any of them fainted, they were treated to a hail of curses, kicks, and slaps with the bald side of their swordsheaths.
The second week was the week of starvation...while suspended from a tree by rope or tied to a stake in the rain.
Archery practice each morning. Each missed target earned him a caning across the back of his shoulders. By the third day, his fingertips were swollen with blood blisters from pulling the bowstrings.
Sword fighting each afternoon. Bouting against experienced swordsmen with hardened bamboo long and short swords, Keiichi quickly was covered with bruised knuckles and welts on his arms and legs.
At night, he and his three companions discussed the pros and cons of making a run for it...but only halfheartedly so. To actually try and escape was out of the question. The example of the severed heads had driven *that* point home. So the talking about "going on the run" was little more than desperate fantasizing; yet it was a necessary exercise in coping for the four beleaguered men.
Twice a week, they were marched out to the onsen near the Lord's 'vacation' mansion. The looks on his companion's faces belied their joy at the prospect of taking a soothing bath at the hot springs...a much needed spell of relief from the dismal reality of their training. Instead, they were introduced to yet another form of discipline: dunking in the hot springs to teach mental stamina. Lord Mori had some kind of dunking chair where Keiichi and the others would take turns being held underwater...under the *hot* water...for a minute at a time, only to emerge choking and gasping. And then dunked again. And again...
In the middle of the night, Lord Mori's retainers would roust them out of their futons and force them to clean the baseboards of the compound's wooden galleries.
Forced memorization of certain passages from a poorly translated Sun Tzu text...with cudgelings for incorrect recitals. Cevn, bless him, somehow managed to convince the Lord that the translations were inadequate. But now, his gaijin friend was being kept up late into the night translating the text from the Chinese original. Cevn would return in the middle of the night and literally collapse on the floor, too tired to even climb onto his futon.
Another week, Tomohisa accidentally stabbed himself with a knife during knife-throwing practice. He was ordered to go on with the practice, despite bleeding profusely from the wound to his leg. His injury occurred when the knife slipped out of his hands and dropped downwards into his calf. All Keiichi could do was watch in sympathy as his cousin kept throwing his knife against the head-shaped wooden target...gritting his teeth.
One day, Keiichi spent the whole day being wrested to the ground. He was stripped naked and thrown in a small room with the other three. Any time he tried to regain his feet, one of the Lord's retainers would pounce on him and wrestle him to the ground. Several of them would throw him against one of the walls. Or they would prod him to the ground with long wooden staffs. Eventually, he realized that the whole goal of the exercise was simply to force his way through the narrow doorway at the end of the room. But try as he might, he never made it past the doorway. The whole process reminded Keiichi of the notorious hazing/training that novice sumotori wrestlers received when they joined a sumo stable.
It took another three weeks for all four of them to finally be able to force their way out of the room on a consistent basis. Each time they emerged from the doorway, the Lord's retainers would treated them with a short rest, with cool cups of water and unspoken respect...before letting the exhausted foursome return to their room a few hours earlier than usual.
Perhaps their trials would be over!
The next day, they were faced with a new challenge. Led out into the courtyard, all four men were forced to kneel on hard bamboo shoots until they passed out...and then were splashed with cold water and made to kneel again. After a few trials of this, Keiichi and the others had their hands bound behind their backs. Then a long length of bamboo was passed behind their backs, so that their elbows pointed backwards uncomfortably. Thus, if one collapsed, all four would fall into the mud, wrenching their arms uncomfortably.
It felt like torture.
On occasion, Lord Mori himself would attend the training, looking at Keiichi or one of the others with an amused interest. Keiichi had to restrain himself from frothing over with near reverence or rage when the Lord attended their training in person. He was well aware that the Lord's retainers were working overtime to indoctrinate a sense of loyalty towards Lord Mori. Yet, he *did* feel personally honored when the Lord took time out to inspect their progress...when he wasn't wishing the Lord to have a heart attack.
From the beginning, they had been exhorted to "practice being men, not boys." The retainers would treat them with brutality...but not sadism. Their training had a very explicit air of solicitude to it. Their instructors demanded respect, and justified their rough handling of Keiichi and his peers by repeatedly admonishing "here, there is only injury...but on the battlefield, there is only death."
Gradually, Keiichi began to feel an emergent sense of strength. He first noticed it one day when he didn't get angry at the beating he took after missing an archery target. He initially excused it as resignation, until he observed later in the day that the beating *just didn't hurt as much*.
He was toughening up.
Their martial arts sensei seemed to notice this subtle change as well. Instead of treating Keiichi and Co. with outright condescension and sarcasm, they occasionally let up on the beatings. "We should have beaten you for your ineptitude, but such treatment would be somewhat undesirable now that you're showing some promise," one of them had remarked after a late-day bouting practice.
At night, the four kept themselves awake late, marveling at that single sentence of praise.

* * * * * * * *

RESCUE MISSION #477 - DEC 2050:

She could barely see through the mist of tears rapidly loaming over her eyes like seawater. The impossible goal of the impossible searching mission...was right in front of her. She could feel the warmth flowing through her as her head was spinning with elation...
"M..mistress...is it truly you?"
Her sister's voices were as equally heavy with emotional release. She felt a tenderness that was white hot rather than temperate; this moment was ultraclean in her mind...not even remotely like she had envisioned it. That vision had given her the drive to persevere. She knew that her companions would be as thrillingly sentimental as she was. The three of them agreed that they would allow themselves this moment of sentiment, of greeting. For after this meeting, the honorable work would *really* begin.
She had hoped that her ploy would be successful. The sheer scale of the technology she had to confound was dizzying...but she would have done anything to fulfill her debt of honor. As the world got more complex over the years, the sower of confusion had become more cunning, more resourceful. Yet, she had been pressed to her utmost skills to pull this one off. But her long sought desire was finally reached...
"K..Kodama?" she heard her mistress's voice through tear-filmed eyes.

* * * * * * * *


Belldandy was breathless with surprise as the six-inch tall figure standing in place of her breakfast leapt into her bosom. She wrapped her arms around the tiny figure, cradling her gently.
"Mi..mistress. We..snff..never gave up! We *never* gave up!" the tiny voice said fervently, muffled against her chest. Belldandy could hear crying...she didn't know if it was her own voice or not. She glanced over to Urd, who was hunched over with little Senrigan crying into her shoulder.
"We looked everywhere. For *forty years* we searched for you! We never gave up!" Kodama repeated over and over again in an apologetic voice.
Belldandy looked at the leader of the Ninjettes. Her hair was a long cascade of jet-gray, looking like a refreshing waterfall as it plunged down her back. Her face was still youthful despite the weathering years. Yet, Bell could feel an intense *maturity* and discipline as she looked at Kodama. The Ninjette still wore the same black garb that she had dressed in when she lived at the compound.
The implication stunned Belldandy....and just wouldn't leave her. Kodama, Hikari and Senrigan had searched for *forty years* in an effort to find them!
Forty years.
"At first..snff..we accepted that it was *our fault*! We were supposed to protect you, to serve you, to defend your honor and even die for you, if need be. Then..snff..one snowy day passed and you were *gone*! Everyone in the house...you, Urd, Skuld, Keiichi, and all the others. We should have been there to protect you! Snff..a few weeks later, the temple burnt to the ground, leaving us without a home. We tried to find Mara, hoping that she knew what happened to you. When we couldn't find her, we looked all over Japan for you. When we didn't find you, we widened our travels and journeyed all over the world.
"Gradually, it became our only reason to live...our sole purpose in life. As it should be. Our lives given to find you and the others. To follow in the footsteps of the Chushingura, were we so honored. B..but we never could find the others. It was as if they simply never existed. We'd given up hope dozens of times...but still we pressed onwards with our mission. To have our masters disappear from our protection is the most dishonorable thing that could happen to a shinobi. We deserved little more than to commit seppuku. W..we wanted to take our lives so many times as the years wore on. But we were torn between our giri obligation as retainers and our desire to find you...out of our love for you. Our desire won out. We decided to dedicate our lives to finding you..."
Belldandy was shaking, feeling her heartstrings pulled hard with sentiment as Kodama launched passionately into her story. It was incredible! Then she remembered the date she had in Tokyo with Keiichi for their four-year anniversary. In her mind, she recalled the statue of Hachiko in the Shibuya train station...the faithful dog that waited 11 years for his master. Kodama and her sister ninja had persisted almost four times as long! Not waiting passively...but actively seeking her and her sisters. With the fire and dedication of a longing love.
"What can I say? What can I do for you, my dear Kodama ninja girl?" she wondered. "How could I possibly say anything meaningful in the face of this eventful reunion?" Normally, she would easily be adept at uttering just the *right* words; she possessed a verbal pastiche of love and wisdom gleaned from over 240 millennia of practiced kindness. Yet, Belldandy was overwhelmed by the sense of devotion that Kodama, Hikari and Senrigan had exerted. She looked at her sisters, who were each cradling a ninja warrioress with tender affection.
"They've literally spent their entire lives in an effort to find us," she marveled. "They were only a couple of years old when we were transported to this time." After a pause, she said the one thing that she hoped would be most meaningful to Kodama. Even if Kodama termed their actions as motivated by duty and honor, Belldandy knew in her deepmost heart that the real reason for their lifelong vigil was an inextinguishable love and gratitude.
"Kodama...it wasn't your fault. There's nothing to forgive, because *none of you were at fault*! There was nothing any of us could have done. Even with my powers intact, I wasn't able to do a thing to prevent our abduction. I still don't know how we ended up incarcerated like this...in this prison. I know that Urd and Skuld must feel as proud of you as I do. We love you! *I* love you! You have rendered yourselves and us an indescribably great honor by your dutiful persistence," she said in a calm voice.
Belldandy felt Kodama sink even further into her bosom, soaking her hospital robe with tiny tears. She gently rocked the deeply sobbing Ninjette, stroking her silken gray hair as she tried to soothe away the guilt Kodama had admitted to.
"Lady Belldandy. Finding you here is the greatest event in our lives. But there is one more service that we must perform. Until we do this...we cannot consider our honor restored. Over the years, we have honed our skills to the point of humble mastery," Kodama explained. Belldandy looked at Kodama more closely, now that the strong feelings of their reunion were winding down. The little Ninjette had an air of *strength*. Hikari and Senrigan so joined her. The three ninja women kneeled formally in front of her. She looked to see Skuld and Urd flanking her.
"Urd...is smiling!" Belldandy observed with deep gratitude. The most unexpected events have a way of reorganizing even the deepest despair into a mellowed sense of epiphany.
"I miss the ocean," she thought. "The ocean...and Keiichi!" Kodama and her sister ninjas projected an assured air.
"Could they help me find my life-lover? In this uncertain future, they had somehow found us!" Belldandy wistfully wondered.
"<I miss him too,>" Urd thoughtcast to her. Belldandy knew in an instant that 'him' Urd was referring to wasn't Keiichi.
The three Ninjettes bowed deeply to the Goddesses. Each tiny face had a serious expression of intent. The novices had become the masters.
Kodama, Hikari and Senrigan cleared their throats and spoke the solemn vow that they had rehearsed for four decades.
"We, Kodama, Hikari and Senrigan of the Goddess Shinobi Clan, *promise* that we will rescue you from this dismal place of confinement! Once we have accomplished this, then we *will* find the others...and fully restore our honor!"

* * * * * * * *

OUTSIDE OF OITA, BUNGO PROVINCE, KYUSHU, JAPAN - MAY 1373:

"Behold your war chariot, my Lord," Keiichi noted with a flourish, gesturing towards the odd looking wooden framework standing in the middle of the daimyo's compound.
"This...is *no* chariot! Where are the horses?" Lord Mori asked, the tone of his voice impatient. "I will suffer no idiots!" he added harshly. Chariots were something that the barbarians overseas used.
"This is a special war chariot, my Lord. Please watch closely," Genji added as he casually strolled to the side. Crossing his fingers, he placed his foot on the jumpstart and kicklevered it down.
*Vrrrrummbbbleemmmummmblllle*
Lord Mori and his retainers cautiously withdrew several paces as the war chariot emitted a deep thundering sound, shooting white steam as it maintained a low growling noise.
"What is this? The work of an oni or tengu?" the Lord asked, intimidated by the sight of the vehicle in front of him, shuddering and shaking as if it had been animated by evil spirits.
"Please observe," Genji said quickly, before the mood of the crowd escalated into even more confusion. In response, Keiichi opened the crude wooden door and climbed into the cushioned wooden seat.
He released the handbrake.
The wooden cart responded by lurching forward. As he drove it out the front gate, Keiichi observed frank astonishment on the faces of every samurai. A moment later, he wheeled the cart around and drove it back into the daimyo's compound.
Gasps erupted as he braked it to a stop.
"And I didn't even open the motor up!" he thought proudly. Genji and he had surpassed themselves with this one! From the decorative ramma geometric designs along the carriage to the grooved wooden wheels covered with the rubber-like sap of acacia and mangrove...the war chariot was a work of art. The framework had been scarfed with tightly interlocking joints borrowed from the designs of Vitruvius; the chassis would be firm, yet elastic to a degree.
The war chariot was a weird blend of several designs; it hybrided elements of cart, automobile and train engine. Powered by a coal-burning steam engine, it was unwieldy...and powerful.
"I..it moves on its own? Without a horse or men?" Lord Mori asked while scrutinizing the wooden 'car'. Genji fought to keep himself from making a face in response to the bumpkinish statement of the obvious by their benefactor and lord. The truth of the matter was the he and Keiichi had *made* this vehicle; they had agilely forged it into existence with sheer engineering creativity.
It was an engineering marvel.
"Yes, your Lordship. Not only is it self-powered...but it is swifter than any mounted soldiers are. It is thrice as fast as a horse," he stated matter-of-factly.
"Prove it."

* * * * * * * *

Keiichi steeled his nerves as he pulled the cart up parallel to one of Lord Mori's finest steeds. The 'war chariot' looked like a stretched out wooden dune buggy...yet this buggy was constructed with a clever combination of wood tresses and metal mount joints. The cabin was enclosed in wood paneling, to ward off any swords and arrows. A simple steering wheel, hand and foot brakes and an accelerator pedal were the only controls. He and Genji had worked on the chariot for the past several months, following the successful completion of their 'basic training'. Their design called for a top speed of 100 kph...slow by modern standards, but incredibly swift by 14th century perspectives. Not to mention that this project had strained the N.I.T. engineering students to the upper limits of their instrumental creativity.
"What would my sempai think of *this*?" Keiichi thought to himself, visualizing Chihiro, Tamiya and Ootaki. He breathed deeply, smelling the rich wooden aroma of the cedar wood used for most of the chariot's carriage.
"These guys are in for a treat!" he added. Over dinner several weeks back, Tomohisa had dreamt up the idea of a demonstration under battle conditions to prove the war chariot's worthiness. He argued that they had caught lightning in a bottle, so to speak...now they needed to prove that it could be put to use. So they approached the Lord and arranged a trial run for the war chariot.
He and Genji had explained the idea of compression to the Lord and his retainers by using the Beppu hot springs as an example. Keiichi still couldn't believe the compression they had achieved with their 'engine'. All in all, it had been a fun project. The nearby coal deposits made the job even easier.
Keiichi expected an almost awestruck reaction from the Lord and his retainers. Horses were considered the most effective form of military transportation because of their speed. Archery had a long history of being highly esteemed by the nobility as the chosen method of weaponry for an army. What he was going to prove was that the war chariot could leave a mounted archer in the dust while also eluding a crossfire of stationary archers. The showman part of his racing skills would come in handy here...he literally needed to create an impressive statement with this 'race'.
"Imagine this...you're in the first road race in history," he heard Genji joke with him. Keiichi smiled at his friend, then shut the door and strapped himself in with the vines they were using instead of seat belts.
"Well, here goes nothing," he said to himself, watching Lord Mori's tent closely. Lord Mori waved his sword from his marquee and Keiichi hit the accelerator. The steam engine burst into life and he felt the cart push forward. Three of the Lord's most accomplished archers were waiting on horseback to pursue him.
A moment later, he looked behind to see the mounted archers trailing far back; their arrows falling woefully short. The next stage of the race would be crucial. Two small squadrons of archers were assembled about a half kilometer away from the starting point, concealed in facing groves of trees. Once Keiichi reached their position, they would attempt to shoot the chariot. In essence, he would have to drive by them so fast that they would be unable to target and strike his vehicle with their shafts.
"Soon..." Keiichi thought as he saw the woods and their hidden twenty archers narrowing towards each side of the clearing. Confident that the cart was traveling at its maximum speed, Keiichi warily watched the archery squads loom closer. He executed a series of weaving turns to make their task more difficult.
As he drove by in a blur, the handpicked archers let fly their arrows. Untouched by the arrows, Keiichi executed a tight turn and drove at one group of archers. He tried to imagine Genji's surprise at this maneuver...this wasn't part of their plan. Instead, Keiichi had decided that it wasn't merely enough to simply avoid the arrows...he would need to demonstrate the offensive capabilities of the chariot. He knew that he could easily avoid accidentally running over one of the archers, but he wanted to send a loud and clear message that the war chariot could run over samurai in the heat of battle.
The archers ran in terrified disarray as Keiichi drove into the woods, chasing them from their position. They dashed into a nearby grove of bamboo and mangrove trees as Keiichi pulled the wooden chariot even with the treeline, driving back and forth as if patrolling the field. It was obvious that the archers were cornered in the small treeplot.
After a few minutes, he reversed the war chariot and drove it back to the throng of spectators and palanquins. He parked it in front of Lord Mori's tent.
Keiichi could tell by the daimyo's expression that he was *very* impressed with their new invention.
"Way to go, Keiichi!" Genji said to Keiichi, giving him a high-five as he helped him out of the wooden cabin of the chariot. The respectful miens of the Lord and his staff of generals and retainers informed Keiichi that he had been a hit.
In an unexpected breach of martial decorum, Lord Mori let out a loud whoop...and the gathering of samurai and townspeople suddenly transformed into a fair-like atmosphere.

* * * * * * * *

CHIBA, JAPAN - 20XX:

Mara looked across the table at Isilblius. The young Demon had grown taller than Mara several weeks ago. His manifestation was almost eight feet tall, a magnificent specimen of Demon physical attributes. As he got older, his development gradually slowed up. She estimated that his appearance equaled 170,000 or 180,000 years of age in Demon terms. What the humans called "the difficult period." Indeed, he was acting just like a teenage Demon.
Only that he was much more powerful than any Demon in Vanagdrasil, except maybe the Dark Lord. It was quite possible that he was presently even more powerful than the Liege that all Demons called Master. Mara drummed her fingers excitedly on the table as she recalled her recent little expedition into Makuhari with Isilblius.
A week ago, he had blasted the temple home of Belldandy and that cursed lot that surrounded her into woodshards. It wasn't enough that they were gone...Mara wanted a tangible sign of victory that she could gloat over. Since none of her enemies were available to be tortured or otherwise harmed, she decided to take her vengeance on the place that Belldandy and Keiichi called home.
A psychological victory of sorts.
Mara was standing across the street, dressed in warm winter clothes so she wouldn't be too conspicuous. She had taught Isilblius how to travel in stealth mode...he was standing invisibly beside her. A red flash of energy arced from the point of his finger...and the entire complex exploded in flames. Startled shouts crept out of snow covered houses as the neighborhood reacted with concern and fear. Isilblius then asked her if he could do the same thing to all of Japan. Mara turned white at his request...how could he have known that he had the power to do such a thing?
And if he did, would he be able to defend against the inevitable retribution of the Dark Lord? Mara knew that the Dark Lord disliked mass destruction; He was more pleased with the endless varieties of personal tragedies His Demons sowed amongst the Earthrealm mortals. Destroying a major chunk of the planet would really piss Him off.
"'Can I destroy all of Japan? Please?'" she remembered him asking.
"Just like that...as if it was no big deal," she wondered in amazement as she returned her attention to Isilblius. Mara painted her mood with a foreboding concern. Isilblius was beginning to take more initiative. He had near infinite powers, but only very limited experience. And his skills were laughably lamentable. She had no doubt that Isilblius could blow up a continent with a wave of his hand...and yet he didn't know how to travel invisibly.
"There is a definite lack of balance we need to work on here," Mara told herself. Theirs was a symbiotic relationship...she needed his power while he needed her knowledge.
But recently, things had gotten even more complicated. A few days ago, Mara had noticed something else in his eyes. It was unmistakable. Unmistakable to a Demoness. Isilblius was regarding her with the admiration that she had seen in the eyes of countless young fawning Demons.
He was becoming physically attracted to her.
At first, the fact that she was his 'mother' in his eyes allowed Mara a great deal of leverage over Isilblius. At times, he was contentious, as in the situation where he refused to bring back Keiichi. Often he was cooperative...but sometimes he was infuriatingly obstinate. The kind of stubbornness that accompanies brazen youth.
In the past week, the link between her and Isilblius had strained itself, evolving along uncertain grounds into a new relativity. Isilblius had stopped calling her "mother". Instead, he seemed to follow her around her lair like a lost Earthrealm puppy. His increased attentions were rubbing her nerves raw.
As she munched away on the KFC Hotwings, she heard a sigh and looked to see him eyeing her...again.
"You...are beautiful, Mara. The most beautiful Demoness I have ever seen," Isilblius said dreamily from across the table. His ruddy dark features were very handsome, despite being expressed by the physique of youth.
"I'm also the *only* Demoness you've ever seen, Isilblius," she replied dryly. Mara had been courted by dozens of Demons; she was very experienced at the delicate repartee that would stall off unattractive suitors.
"Yes, but you're the One," he said softly.
"Oh Oni-sama...here we go once more!" Mara thought with exasperation. The past two days had been punctuated by outbursts of powdery adoration by the child-Demon, usually at mealtime. He was making comments about her fangs...which was one of the more heavily 'sexualized' features of a Demoness. Along with her bust, hair, derriere and smile. None of which seemed to escape the attention of the young hot-blooded Demon.
"Some Ultimate Demon you are," Mara grumbled under her breath. "You couldn't harm a fly. You're so washed out with being a lovelorn..."
"Mara, how do Demons and Demonesses...?" Mara decided that this line of conversation was heading into areas that she was uncomfortable explaining or even dealing with, so she decided to change the subject.
"Isilblius, dear," she asked, leaning over table a little bit closer to him. She was going to try something new this time. A new approach, time tested and true.
Meat tenderizer.
"If Isilblius is attracted to me, then I'm going to lead him on. I can take advantage of his feelings and gain control over him. Then he'll be eating out of the palm of my hand," she decided.
"Isilblius...what did you do with the Goddesses and the mortals? You said that you 'put them away somewhere'. Why don't you tell me how you did it? I'm really interesting in finding out," she said in a husky voice. She looked Isilblius in the eyes and saw immediately that her charm act had worked. He was looking at her with softly melting googoo eyes.
"It was simple, Mara. I just put them all in different places in Time," he answered matter-of-factly. Mara heard the sound of one of her hands slapping the table, punctuating the silence that gripped the dining area.
"YOU *WHAT*?" Mara shouted, her astonishment only barely suppressing her from screaming. She felt her face knot up into an angry grimace.
"What'd I do wrong? I got rid of them, just like you said for me to do! I didn't do anything wrong!" he said frantically, almost whining.
"You...idiot! They're *NORNS*! Time is their domain! Besides being regular Goddesses, they control Time!"
"So?"
"They could come back!" she snarled.
"Oh..." he mumbled back, looking downcast.

* * * * * * * *

CONFINEMENT - 2050:


The three Ninjettes had departed, promising to be back in two days. Kodama hinted that they had been reconnoitering the complex the Goddesses were imprisoned in. This explained Urd's sighting of several gray blurs when the wallport window was open to Aoshima's lab.
Heartened by the reunion with their faithful Ninjettes, Skuld was also deeply disturbed by the news that their temple complex had burnt to the ground. Everything she knew on the Earthrealm was there. Banpei-kun. Mini-Banpei. All her mini-mechas. Her assembly kits and her computer. Her shojo manga. Skuld felt like her heart had been sliced open a moment later when she thought of the others. It was a deeply cold mid-December week when they had disappeared...thrust four decades into mankind's future. But Keiichi and the other mortals? Did they live through it? How could the temple burn to the ground?
Skuld asked Belldandy if she had any premonition of destruction. Belldandy was always confident of the convergent spiritual properties of the temple. Being the Norn of the Present, she was more attuned to realtime axialities than either she or Urd. In other words, she could sense the spiritual truth of a physical locale in the present TimeStream. Skuld and Urd, of course, were more sensitive to Time than locale. But Belldandy had a balance of each.
"We were led to it, because it was a *good* place," Belldandy had insisted over the years. Yet, the destruction of such a *holy* place...holy by virtue of the sacred place the temple had held in each of their hearts...had taken a huge emotional toll on her Elder Sister.
Despite Belldandy's assurances that she was "all right", Skuld could see the worry on her face. She asked Urd if there was any history of conflagrations in the temple. Many such structures in Japan had been rebuilt over and over again because of their vulnerability to fire and the numerous natural disasters. She thought it was absolutely amazing that their temple home had survived the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. Urd had replied that Cevn somehow knew that the temple building was seven centuries old.
Skuld had always believed that she had never precognized any disasters looming on the TimeStream. As far as she was concerned, everything was auspicious at the site where they lived. Skuld couldn't always decipher *all* possible futures...this ability would come with the maturity of adulthood, according to Kami-sama. But her sisters always trusted Skuld's judgment in matters of the future.
"So how did it happen?" she asked herself again. There was one way she could know for sure. But it would rely heavily on an assumption she had made. Arriving at a decision, the youngest Norn steeled herself for another ride on the TimeStream. Closing her eyes, she emitted a gentle green glow.
"<Skuld!>" she heard both of her sisters thoughtcast with deep concern. But she could barely hear them in her mind as the azure glow turned inwards and she felt her conscious blend with it. She didn't like riding the TimeStream. It was more of a vortex than a stream...it was anything but linear.
Each Norn had a burden as part and parcel of their respective relationships with Time. Urd was locked into the Past, limited by its form while having to relive even painful and tragic events. Belldandy was the eternal Now, but her insight into past and future was severely hampered; thus she saw Time as instantial rather than linear. Skuld had the mazelike Future to navigate, painful because of its ethereal delicacy of unfulfilled consequents.
Skuld started to become thenwise; and the thenwise images formed in her mind. Screening out the timechatter, she narrowed her focus onto a select set of souls, human and divine.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh..." she gasped...

**********
She saw Belldandy and Keiichi cradling baby Chantel in a hospital bed in Tokyo. Keiichi was dressed in a policeman's uniform. Their daughter had light brown gossamer hair and a purple oval in the middle of her forehead...

She saw Urd throwing flowers off of a bridge, tears tracing her face as she looked blankly at a burning pyre on a hill...

She saw Ootaki and Peorth teaching at N.I.T. Several male students were commenting on Peorth's charms. Ootaki's hair was brown...

She saw a balding Tamiya dressed in a suit in his office, his large desk buried under paperwork. The sign on his desk said "Welcome to the Mayor's Office of Sapporo..."

She saw Banpei hunched over a dead Megumi, her chest ripped open by a gaping wound. Smoke hovered over the ground...

She saw Keiichi, Cevn and Genji wearing pink suits, marching in a Gay Pride Parade. The unisex symbol on their white armbands glinted in the sun...

She saw Sayoko and Keiichi holding hands at Belldandy's wedding. The paparazzi were busy taking photos of Bell and her new husband, Brad Pitt...
She saw the ruins of their temple home being bulldozed. Charred wood and dead trees blacked the lot...

**********

"Nnggh..."

**********

She saw Megumi and Cevn playing with their grandchildren while a pensive Urd looked on. Urd's eyes were sad with the weight of the world...

She saw a kneeling Keiichi crying in front of a tombstone. On it was a portrait of Belldandy and the date 2023. Standing next to him was Tamiya and Ootaki, each resting a hand on the grieving Keiichi's shoulder...

She saw Mara with a ruddy red-dark skinned Demon, swimming on a deserted beach...
She saw Ootaki and three other men playing in a rock band to a huge crowd at Johoku Park in Osaka...

She saw Genji standing next to a fence, gripping its metal links. On the fence was a sign that read "Tokyo Radiation Contamination Area. This area is quarantined. Keep Out!!" On the other side of the fence was a gray lifeless desert...and Sayoko and her son, Tamiya...

She saw a groundwar being fought in the mountains. Urd and Tomohisa were dressed in military fatigues, covered with snow and grime as explosions rained all around them...

**********

"Nooo..."

**********

She saw Urd dressed in white mourning clothes reading palms in a park in Kyoto...
She saw Belldandy and Keiichi beaming with pride at their grandson Keoki as he graduated from Waseda University. Cevn was in a wheelchair, dressed in a regent's academic robe...

She saw Megumi and Sora lecturing a redheaded teenage girl, telling her that she was just like her late mother, Sayoko. They were warning her about drugs...

She saw Belldandy walk out of a small farmhouse, vowing to never return. Keiichi emerged after her, throwing things at her while screaming about marital infidelity...

She saw Mara and Cevn living in a ghetto in Bangkok. Cockroaches abounded as their three children played in the single room they called home...

She saw Genji helping Belldandy shovel snow in the temple compound. Keiichi and Peorth were huddled under a blanket on a bench on the veranda...

She saw Urd and Keiichi in a theme room in a love hotel. Urd was dressed in a corset with fishnet stockings. Keiichi was handcuffed to the bedposts....

She saw Sayoko and Genji in Africa filming a documentary on the comet strike of 2033. They were talking about how half the people on the planet perished ten years ago...

She saw Urd in front of several cameras, preparing to anchor the TBS Weekend News...

She saw Megumi and Genji visiting Keiichi and Belldandy, while their children played. Megumi was talking about Los Angeles...

**********

"Errrggg..."

**********

She saw Sora and Chihiro in some kind of temple complex. Both were dressed in gray robes. Both were bald...

She saw an angry Aoshima lecturing a roomful of scientists...

She saw herself...

**********

"That's it, I'm there..."

**********
She saw Keiichi, Genji, Tomohisa and Cevn dressed in rags, working outdoors in rice paddies. Sweat poured off of their bodies as they pounded the ground with spades.

**********

"What??? *This* doesn't feel like the future..."

**********

She saw Sayoko and Megumi in some sort of white room, looking out at an incredible cityscape that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. Both girls were engaged in quiet conversation about Genji.

She saw the Ninjettes seated around a quietly crackling fire, drawing designs in the ground with a stick.

She saw...she saw a small figure in a robe...

**********

"Uhnnnn..." she gasped as she collapsed into a midair huddle.

* * * * * * * *

"We've been over this before," Skuld replied impatiently. She had exerted herself to the utmost when she traveled the TimeStream. Winding through complex mazes of soft fragments of Time, she was somewhat certain of some of the things she saw. Experience had taught Skuld that when she observed herself while traversing FutureTime, then it meant that she was closing in on the *correct* extension of the timeline. Yet, the 'correct' TimeStream seemed amiss...which proved her assumption.
An assumption she couldn't quite understand.
Belldandy seemed to cling to each word she said, but she was visibly disappointed when Skuld informed her that she didn't encounter a future instance involving the destruction of the temple. The closest she came was seeing the temple already in ruins...a sight that was enough to make her swear off any future travels in the TimeStream.
"Yes, but you know how she is...she can't stand knowing," Urd commented, justifying Belldandy's desperate urge to learn the fate of the Temple. Skuld looked irritated, as Urd had interrupted her descriptions of the future.
"*I* can't stand it either, for that matter!" Urd added.
"So why are you criticizing her?" Skuld shot back. Twice, she had explained everything she saw. Belldandy didn't harbor any doubts about what Skuld had seen...she just wanted more details. Urd ignored her remark and continued complaining.
"Look...this lack of *anything* is really bugging me. There's no TV, no music, no conversation, no boyfriends, no dresses..." Urd complained.
"So that's an excuse to get crazy? If you're bored, then it's *your* problem!" Skuld confronted her.
"Ahhhh. Contentious as usual, I see," a voice interrupted over the intercom or whatever was producing the sounds. As usual, Skuld looked in the direction of the sound, only to find once again that there was no visible means of soundshifting.
"How did our temple home burn down?" Urd blurted.
After several moments of silence, the wall slid apart, revealing Aoshima standing in his control room. He had a surprised look on his face, which he quickly composed into his mask-face.
"How did you know *that*?" he said crisply.
"We're not telling," Urd said in a musical teasing voice.
"Have they been in contact with anybody? Has anyone circumvented our security precautions?" an angry Aoshima shouted at his aides.
"Aoshima...you know that we're Norns. We can *see* time. You only think you know everything about us. But we're Goddesses. *Goddesses*!!! We are so far beyond your ken...you're only being arrogant and insipid if you think you have the necessary wisdom to discern our motives and powers," Belldandy explained, a hint of contempt in her voice.
Skuld was concerned. Aoshima had a reason to suspect that they had been visited by the three Ninjettes. Urd had tried gamely to confound him, but she could tell by his face that Aoshima was clearly caught off guard with their inquiry.
"Or is it something else?" she wondered.
"In light of the fact that there may have been a security breach, we're going to have to step up the next phase of the operation to tomorrow. Do you recognize this?"
Skuld felt a chill as she watched Aoshima pull a SoulGun from a slot in the wall. He brandished it in a soldierly fashion, grinning malevolently as he took aim at each of the three Goddesses. Terrified, she let out a scream as he targeted her with the SoulGun. She wanted to hide behind her two older sisters, but they had both backed up flush against the wall.
"So you do know what this is, judging by your reactions. Not to worry, however. We've modified it. This is the most dangerous weapon in the universe. But I've altered it so that it can extract portions of the Soul. I can use it at the full setting, which would totally disintegrate the Soul. Or I can use it on the partial setting. In partial mode, it slices thin shards of Soul. Think of it as a dissection of the Soul. I guarantee you that it will be *extremely* painful. With a maimed Soul, each of you would exist only as shadows of your former selves. With part of your Soul dead, you would be crippled...forever," Aoshima explained, an infernal grin perched threateningly on his face.
"Tomorrow, you will tell me everything you know about immortality, Yggdrasil and Time. Or I will use this. I will dissect your Souls bit by bit until you give me the information I demand." With a dramatic slicing motion of his hand, he signaled the wall to close.
All three Goddesses were paralyzed with fear.

* * * * * * * *

OITA, BUNGO PROVINCE, KYUSHU, JAPAN - JULY 1373:

"Uh, you guys...we've got a really big problem," I said. We had just finished with dinner, but all I could eat was the miso soup. My 'metallect' had just informed me of something really disturbing, placing me in a position to either speak to it credibly or just ignore it and risk disaster.
"What?" Genji and Keiichi asked. Tomohisa looked at me with surprise. With my 'foreigner' portrayal, I was rarely afforded opportunities to speak since we were guests of Lord Mori. Genji or one of the others would have to speak for me. I would motion their attention, whereupon I would be given a scrap of paper to write my thoughts. I was almost surprised to hear my own voice; I had kept my silence for almost a week. There was always a page or retainer just around the corner.
"The problem is this. Keiichi is the descendant of Lord Mori, removed by at least 20 generations. Genji is the descendant of Lord Shimazu as well. If they go to war, then there is a distinct possibility that one of them will be killed. If that happens...then you can figure out the rest," I wrote on a piece of paper.
I had tried to be as parsimonious as possible with my explanation. All three were looking at me with disbelief. Finally, Genji shook his head and ran his hand over his pate. He and Keiichi had just had their heads shaved this morning in the half-bald hairstyle befitting a samurai retainer.
"Look...you have to *trust* me on this. I know. There is a reason why each of you physically resemble Mori and Shimazu. Believe the evidence of your eyes!" I wrote, trying not to be discovered speaking.
"Isn't that kinda weak?" Keiichi contested.
"It's a lot more than that, Keiichi. God, I wish one of the Goddesses were here to back me up. Believe me, it's true...just as true as my blue eyes," I finally said in a low voice.
"You mean...if one of these big dudes kills the other, then either cousin Keiichi or Genji will just pop out of existence?" Tomohisa offered. I nodded my head in assent.
"Exactly. Our job has just got more complicated. We need to make sure that neither one kills the other in this upcoming battle. We have to protect both of them," I wrote.
"That's impossible! You saw what they did to Shimazu's men. They gave them a ...all the way down to the neck," Genji said, almost shouting.
"Shhhhshh!" Keiichi hushed him. I proffered the paper, hinting that we should communicate through writing.
"T..this is nuts! What can we do *from here* to protect Lord Shimazu?" I was relieved at Keiichi's question...at least they had accepted the premise and were looking outside of it for solutions.
"I don't have any idea. We have the war chariot, so we can use it for Lord Mori," I stated the obvious.
"That's a lotta help!" Genji wrote, ending his sentence with a frowning face. "It's *my* forebear who's at risk! The fact that we created the war chariot tips the advantage to Lord Mori."
"If I recall, Lord Shimazu is stronger in this era. His clan was already entrenched militarily long before Mori came to Oita. If he wins the battle, then he'll be okay. We just would need to make sure that he can't get to Lord Mori."
"So this means that we need to...doublecross...Lord Mori?" Tomohisa asked. "Isn't that like...way insane? The guy's worse than a yakuza!"
I looked at Keiichi, remembering our run in with the yakuza thugs a while back at the temple. I felt tired...it seemed that the recent events were eternities away.
"We need to make sure that this battle ends in a stalemate," I scribbled.
"What if...we try and resolve this issue without a battle? If there's no war, then there's no chance of either getting killed."
"You saw Mori's men. They're like pirates who've sighted a stranded frigate without any gunwales!" I wrote, finishing my line with brush tapping for an exclamation. I looked at each face; it was obvious to all of us that there was nothing we could do to avert the coming conflict.
"This *really* sucks!" Tomohisa wrote. I couldn't agree with him more.

* * * * * * * *

TOKYO, JAPAN - DEC 2050:

It had been almost 15 months by their count since they had arrived here. Megumi and Sayoko had gone stir-crazy, gotten cabin-fever, walked like mental patients...and the tedium still wore on. Their host allowed them a library of late-20th century and 21s TV series, dramas and anime to break up some of the boredom. Both had celebrated birthdays over the past year; the robots actually came in and sang "Happy Birthday" in machine-computer voices. Both times, they had left the room wearing the cakes, accompanied by shrieks of laughter.
The two women had become close friends, having gone past that 'getting-on-the-nerves' period from months earlier. In the gym, Sayoko had taught Megumi the rudiments of martial arts, while Megumi had taught her how to play softball.
Megumi felt like she knew Genji a hundred times better, because she saw him anew through the eyes of his older sister. Many nights, she sat up with Sayoko listening to her purge her guilt over her addictive periods in her life. Sayoko shocked the hell out of her when she admitted that she had a crush on Tamiya.
They both discussed why nothing had been done other then keeping them locked up in a hotel-like setting. Didn't Aoshima indicate that they were valuable and subject to observation. Or were they being observed all along; the rooms they lived in being filled with hidden monitors and scientific measuring devices. It didn't make sense at all.
So much had changed and yet remained the same, they were not prepared for the this morning's visit by their robotic keepers...

* * * * * * *

"Come with me," the robot commanded. Sayoko looked at Megumi with a puzzled expression. Megumi shrugged her shoulders.
"Cooperate or be sanctioned!" the mecha repeated in a very insistent voice. Megumi felt sudden fear at the idea that the robot was going to lead them 'off ward'. Obviously, the robot was intending to take them somewhere else besides their familiar environs. She felt her legs trembling as her fear mounted. Mental pictures flashed through her mind...unpleasant scenes of medical experimentation. Needles and scalpels and chemical vials and restraints and other horrors.
"This is your last warning. If you do not come willingly, force will be employed in the form of an electrical shock."
The robot almost sounded angry at their lack of cooperation. One of the mechanical appendages began a complicated transformation from a grappling septypal metallic hand. Sayoko backed up a pace as the robot produced a menacing object that looked like a three-pronged electric cattle prod. Three more robots entered the living room where the two women were finishing dinner.
A robot posted itself next to each girl.
"Finish eating, then come with us," they demanded. Neither girl made an effort to eat. After what seemed like ten minutes, the mechas reached down, grabbed them each by the arm and pulled upward. Megumi stood up reluctantly as she was half-pulled to her feet.
Sayoko was feeling terrified. After seeing the video program a dozen days ago, she was aware of how tenuous her and Megumi's status was. The future was already frightening...but the fact that she and her friend were mere *property* of Aoshima's infernal Toshishima Imperium...
The two robots escorted a struggling Megumi and Sayoko out through a doorway that appeared in the end of the hallway.

* * * * * * * *