Ah My Goddess Fan Fiction ❯ Trial By Tenderness ❯ Part 46 - Minddrive ( Chapter 46 )

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

Part 46 MindDrive



Keiichi snapped awake. Feeling instantly alert; his thoughts were rippling through his mind like clarion echoes. Wordlessly, he immediately sensed that something was definitely amiss. His head felt out of proportion to the rest of his body. His mental activities seemed to redound with an unexpected abstruseness. As he moved his head while resting on his pillow, he noticed a physical sensation of topheaviness.
"*Weird*," he muttered as he reached up to touch his face. "Could this be the result of too much studying?" His emotions gathered into a panic as his sense of proprioception seemed to indicate that his head was much larger in size than it should be.
Then he saw Skuld's Electro-Intellihancer Mk. IV lying on the floor. The helm with its filigree of wires and cables was emitting a soft humming tremolo.
"Skuld!" he cursed under his breath. "That little brat must have snuck in last night to 'try out' her device on me while I slept! Man, is *she* gonna get it!"
This doubtlessly explained why his mind seemed so cleanly analytical. Skuld's mecha did all that she promised; the process of his cognition seemed to be accelerated a hundredfold. Keiichi quickly shucked the futon covers aside as a torrent of thought sensations vied for his attention. His eyes darted around the room until he spied the small desk mirror poised on one of the shelves in his room. Grabbing the mirror desperately, he looked inside of it...
A moment later he heard his own voice, sounding as distant as Mt. Aso, screaming with lungworthy affright at the image in the mirror. Once his throat finished hurling screams, Keiichi gasped for breath as terror arced from mind to heart and back. He felt a dull pain in his chest, no doubt the result of his grave shock.
In the mirror was a face of a monster.
His lower face looked almost exactly the same as before...but the cranial portion of his head was disproportionately large. His forehead extended up and outwards, hooding his eyes. Blood vessels pulsed their lifeforce alongside his temples; his skin was drawn tightly over the superior half of his head. His spiky hair crowned the top of his head like a small cap rather than falling in spiky bangs over his forehead and temples. His head appeared distorted, like one of those amusing trick mirrors at the midsummer fair his parents took him to when he was a kid.
Keiichi quickly realized that his brain had doubled in size. His entire skull had asymmetrically restructured itself to accommodate the neurological growth. The nearest visual comparison he could come up with was the "Roswell Alien" imagery that the American entertainment community thrust into mass popularity in the late 90s. His head possessed a misshapen triangularity that was...alien, to say the least.
He looked like a *Gray*.
With a deliberate effort, he tried to calm himself...and failed. He regarded the device lying next to the folds of his futon. Obviously, Skuld's mecha had transformed the neurochemical matrix in his brain in the fashion that she had described. But then it had gone one step beyond. Somehow, it had clearly accelerated his visceral evolution with the result that his cerebellum and cerebral cortex had increased dramatically in mass.
Intuitively, he acknowledged that his mental capacities had increased proportionately as well. His memory was as clear as the winter air; he could remember *every word* from all of his classes yesterday. With only a slight effort, he realized that he could remember every word of *every* class he had ever taken at N.I.T! With eidetic precision, he envisioned each question on the graduate exam practice test mockups. It was as if his mind had been adrift before in a fog-covered sea...self-contained like a message in a bottle. Once fetched ashore by the tide, his intellect felt like an unleashed tiger. School was simply...simple.
"What...has happened to me?" he thought, his mind relinquishing control to the syrupy pour of his desperation. "Belldandy..."
"Please help me..." he pleaded mentally.

* * * * * * * *

"<Keiichi dear, I'm coming!>" Belldandy thoughtcast. Urd and Skuld were both awake, startled out of their slumbers by a mental shriek...a thought-voice clearly fired with fear.
"Why are you thoughtcasting to Keiichi?" Urd asked with a surprised expression. Belldandy looked at Skuld, whose face was white with shock...or something else. Her mouth voiced emptily as she discovered that she wasn't the only one who 'heard' Keiichi's panic in their minds. Her internal alarms escalated, trumpeting ciphers of deep worry as she almost tripped over the long hems of her pink cotton winter PJs en route to Keiichi's room. She gasped as she slid the shoji door open.
The man in the middle of the room...wasn't Keiichi. Someone else was there, something that resembled her mortal boyfriend, but yet was grotesquely deformed. Belldandy almost fainted from the sight of Keiichi's enlarged head. Urd had to brace her up from behind as Belldandy's legs went weak with qualmy.
"<It's *me*, Bell-chan!>" she heard a reassuring voice in her mind. Her doubts were dispelled when she looked into his eyes...and saw sheer love. The same wide vista of affection, peaked with desperate cascades of heartfelt terror and disorientation.
"Ah...my lovely Goddess, am I glad you're here! I'm about ready to misplace the little sliver of sanity that I have remaining!" he added as she knelt near him and pulled him to her, hugging him.
"Keiichi, what happened to your *head*?" she asked worriedly. "Do you feel alright?"
"<Besides being shocked into craziness by this, I *feel* fine. I'm not in any pain, except for the discomfort of looking...like this,>" he thoughtcast to her. Belldandy realized that there was much more to this than simple a case of Keiichi having a big head.
"Well, I always thought that having a big head would help out poor little Keiichi here," Urd mentally mused to herself.
"<I *heard* that!>"
Urd realized with a shock that she was hearing Keiichi *inside* of her mind. She wasn't even thoughtcasting; she was just musing to herself. Her middle sister would get upset too easily if she knew that Urd was drawing any humor from this situation. Yet, he had sensed her unspoken, un-thoughtcast observations and opinions...like a mindreader.
Like a telepath.
Belldandy glanced at Keiichi, then Urd, with an awed expression. She had just 'heard' Keiichi chastise Urd in her mind! Her mouth fell agape with facefallen shock as she plummeted down an imaginary vortex; trying and failing to accept the apparent fact that Keiichi had become *telepathic*. She couldn't shake the unbelief out of her head; she had clearly heard her beloved mortal boyfriend...thoughtcasting! He had heard Urd’s private thoughts without her even attempting to thoughtcast them.
Which immediately presented a huge problem, the difficulty every mortal sentient race has to confront when they evolved telepathy: the need to create a new sense of privacy. The mortals had to learn respect for each other on a whole new level; and they needed to learn to ‘filter’ their minds and their telepathic ‘listening’. With telepathy, the private conversation and introspection one has with themselves is no longer quite so private.
"<So this new ability of mine is called 'thoughtcasting'?>" Keiichi's confused mental voice queried in her head.
"Can we please use vocalizations? Let's just talk aloud instead of thoughtcasting. I know that I'm the Goddess and you're the mortal, and you probably have many questions. But this is just too intense and unexpected for me to comprehend right at the moment, my darling Keiichi," Belldandy asked in a level voice, even though her internal self was fretting anxiously. She felt an urgency to ground herself back into reality…which hopefully would ground her boyfriend into reality as well. His fear-filled impressions were almost like thought-screams.
The astonished looks on both her sister's faces paralleled her own surprise. This strange idea of Keiichi being telepathic was quite unsettling to each of them. At present, mortals were physiologically incapable of thoughtcasting because certain brain centers were undeveloped; to the same extent that chimpanzee's lack of vocal cords rendered their species incapable of speech.
She reviewed what she had inculcated in Multiverse BioHistory 702 during SecondTier Inculcation, almost hearing the Proctor's voice in her memories...

"Many of the Multiverse's races have developed speech but not telepathy, as speech actually inhibits the evolution of telepathy or other forms of transverbal communication. In our studies, we often encounter numerous species that bypass speech entirely, evolving directly to telepathic modes of thought communion. These species are often limited by physiological or environmental constraints, such as the lack of lungs due to thin atmosphere, no vocal organs, a decided lack of need to evolve afferent nerve systems. At times, their survival relies on the acquisition of writing, gestural context, or other means of thought/iconic transmission..."

In keeping with the difficulties posed by telepathizing, Belldandy knew that the Earthrealm mortals weren't scheduled to become telepathic until several centuries passed in the future. This 'schedule' was a deliberate effort on the part of the Gods; a certain level of cultural maturity was necessary before individuals could telepathize with each other. Of course, the Demons also fought for *their form* of telepathy; a telepathic race with exceeding self-interest and selfishness was much more malleable. Much easier to bedevil and anguish with grief.
In the 26th century, the Yggdrasil Mainframe would tweak a few genes in a few thousand babies to produce the necessary mutations. Within another two centuries, *all* humans would be telepathic. Another century would be used to monitor how they adapted to syncognitive telepathy as a species. If they achieved a fitness of spiritual and intellectual communion-rigor, they would have accomplished their candidacy for the Next Level.
Then, the Gods and the Demons would reveal themselves...and Mankind would be offered a choice. *The Choice*. They would be invited to an opportunity to apprentice under the God's guidance. If they chose the path of the Gods, and then successfully concluded their period of novitiation, a period usually ranging between 10,000 to 40,000 years in duration, then they would be assisted to evolve into demi-Gods with the gift of immortality and ethereality. No more constraining physical forms; as they would be beings of energy.
At least, this was the way things were planned.
Assuming that Kami-sama spared the mortals...and that they reached the first stage of the Next Level. Without telepathy, Mankind would never emerge from the rudiments of their childish culture. Belldandy once again recalled the teaching of the Proctors...

"Species that transition from verbal to transverbal communication often face the most difficult trials of racial survival in their evolutionary history. Millions of races have died out at this point of development. The stars are filled with such tragedies. The essential pattern of self-destruction is usually the same: non-telepaths and telepaths would slaughter each other in genocidal wars. Telepaths would become mentally imbalanced in the face of the sudden acquisition of syncognitive insights into matters of the heart; their insanity eventually extinguishing the genetic lamp that allowed for mind enhancement. Many races have entirely failed to reconcile the philosophical principle of 'privacy' with the advent of telepathy, resulting in lemming-like mass suicides. Souls would become enmeshed, leading species to stray away from spiritual pursuits to drown in their own declines into savagery. Many races have also experienced an inverse canalization of their genome; thus debilitating the individual's ability to interpret symbolic communication."

Strangely enough, this process resembled an episode from Earthrealm mortal mythologies; a narrative that the mortals referenced in several of their world-myths...the 'Tower of Babel' metaphor.
In the scheme of things, the Gods and Demons both had the dire duty of protecting the Multiverse's order by eradicating races that proved useless to either. In the process of evolution, a species would reach an initial sentiency, and then reach the Next Level approximately 50-790 thousand years later. A race that becomes telepathic while remaining devolved cannot join the Gods or the Demons. When this happens, the potential exists for the species to leave its home solar system and starfare, coming in contact with other mortal species and potentially frustrating *their* chances to become demi-Gods or demi-Demons.
Thus, the "probation" that Kami-sama had assigned the Earthrealm mortals was an attempt to perform a deep evaluation of their worthiness for continued existence. If the mortals failed their probation, then their destruction would be a necessary cleansing. A devolved species could never threaten the Gods or Demons directly; but they could cause collateral damage by frustrating the Gods or Demons in their attempts to cultivate and novitiate species. At the moment, the humanity of the Earthrealm is in the process of being 'cultivated' by both the Gods and the Demons. Hence, the existence of the Goddess Relief Office and the Demon Grief Office.
Both offices had a 'mission statement' to utilize wish-completion assignments as one means of 'nudging' the mortals in either direction towards the Next Level. Bestowing wishes or grief; they had a key role whereby the mortals will either wind up being 'apprenticed' on either the "God-track" or the "Demon track" of evolution. Humanity could join the Gods; becoming Gods and Goddesses themselves should they prove worthy to the goal. Belldandy knew that humanity could never surpass the Gods or the Demons, who were at the pinnacle of spiritual awakening and fitness. Yggdrasil and Vanagdrasil were protected by Kami-sama and Oni-sama, an omnipotent safeguard against rebellion within each Realm by those who deluded themselves into thinking they were 'superior' Gods or Demons.
Yet, her beloved Keiichi had somehow bridged the morphogenetic chasm...a fact that frightened and intimidated Belldandy. Her fear extended itself like a Spring floodwater; not only for her precious Keiichi, but also for humanity itself. The implications were staggering.
It was troublesome enough that Cevn had introduced a significant chunk of Yggdrasilian metaphilosophy and metamathematics in his dissertation project. Humankind wasn't scheduled to be exposed to the initial sequence of those concepts until *after* telepathy became a reality. The aquantum metastatics that he presented were critical adjuncts to telepathic communication; there simply was no other way to prevent the ensuing chaos that arose from the powerful group consciousness enabled by strong links between telepathic minds. *Thought itself* needed to be indexed, with the thoroughness of an dictionary. Unwittingly, he had given humanity such an index...the means to create a dictionary of cognition.
Since the mortals weren't supposed to become telepathic until the late 26th century, a human being that manifested transverbal thoughtcasting capabilities ahead of schedule could pose an extreme threat to humanity's chances of reaching the Next Level. In her inculcation, Belldandy knew that in such past cases, the individual was usually quarantined from their homeworld species...becoming a ward of either a God or Demon for the rest of their lives. This was absolutely necessary to protect the species against the early introduction of an evolutionary process that it was ill-equipped to deal with. Even the Demons couldn't take any pleasure in the resultant self-destruction of a species in such cases.
Keiichi was clearly thoughtcasting, albeit in a clumsy, unpracticed manner.
"If Yggdrasil Mainframe finds this out via the 'Test Mortal' monitoring project, Keiichi will be taken away from the Earthrealm...and from *me*!" she thought with a dreadful misgiving.. The other danger resolved with the mortals themselves. It was quite possible that...if other mortals learned of his special abilities, they would attempt to exploit them...with a mercenary disregard for the numerous parlous consequences. Just like they had done with nuclear physics, by creating their atomic bomb. The current UFO craze in Japan and Russia was enough to convince Belldandy that anything out of the ordinary would set off a panic. Over the millennia, the Earthrealm mortals consistently functioned at their worst during these periods of sociocultural instability. The Paleolithic extinction of the Neanderthals by the Earthrealm mortals captured Belldandy's attention for a moment...
If Keiichi remained telepathic, his life was in danger!
And if he came to harm in any way by his fellow mortals, the Almighty would certainly accord humanity as having failed their probation. Either possibility was like a noose in the silk loom.
"Get a grip on yourself, Bell!" she challenged herself. At least she had remembered to shield her mind so she didn't accidentally 'leak' her speculations to her now-clairaudient boyfriend. Keiichi was *already* freaked out as it was.
"And what do you think *you're* doing?!" Belldandy heard Urd shout with cilious sarcasm, interrupting the gestations of her panic. Urd's tone caused her to shudder into a cringe, momentarily wondering if *she* had done something wrong. There was something about her older sister when she spoke that way; an edgy mysterious quality that urged Belldandy towards respectful deference.
"But it isn't me," Belldandy realized. Urd was looking censoriously at Skuld, who was standing near Keiichi's futon, hands clasped behind her back. Brought under the attention of her two sisters, Skuld was smiling innocuously.
Belldandy noticed that Skuld was surreptitiously trying to nudge something out of sight behind a dresser with one of her feet.
"Ah! And what do we have here?" Urd said triumphantly as she floated over and reached for the object that Skuld was trying to conceal.
"*Don't touch my new invention, Big Sister!*" Skuld yelled defensively as she pushed Urd away with un-Skuld-like strength. Belldandy watched as Urd wrestled with Skuld; the Elder Norn's struggles and greater length of reach were eventually rewarded with the object Skuld was so zealously guarding. Or concealing, as it appeared to Belldandy.
"Yes, Skuld, what were you trying to hide?" Belldandy asked her little sister. In the space a few seconds since they had entered the room, Skuld had located and tried to hide something. Calling the 'something' an *invention* gave her leave to mentally reconstruct what had probably happened here.
"Skuld, why did you use the Electro-Intellihancer on me last night, after I told you that I didn't want you to try it on me?" Keiichi asked angrily. Belldandy could see that he was barely maintaining his cool...his hands were fisted and aquiver. She stepped behind him and hugged him, reaching her arms around his waist, hoping that he would calm down.
"I only wanted to help!" Skuld creaked in an anguished voice.
"Of course she 'only wanted to help,'" Urd repeated burlesquely, rolling her eyes at her younger sister's inept justification.
"Skuld...I want an explanation. Not an apology, not an excuse, not an avoidance. Just an explanation. Okay?" Belldandy said coolly. She could tell that Skuld's 'girl side' had reemerged in full force. Once again, her younger sister had mantled herself with the yolk of guilty fear, as she sensed that she was potentially going to be punished for her actions. Skuld's eyes flashed with desperation. Belldandy wanted her to know that she wouldn't be disciplined...too much, anyway.
Yet, this wasn't an ordinary mistake...even with the hindsight towards her little sister's past 'Skuld-scale' missteps...
"I just wanted to help Keiichi pass the big test, so that he could spend more time with you. I kept seeing how lonely you were, Elder Sister! Always reading those disgusting pulp romance novels..."
"Belldandy...why I never knew that you could appreciate the finer things in life," Urd teased her. Belldandy soured at this, and almost stuck her tongue out at Urd.
"So I devised a means by which Keiichi could..." Skuld continued.
"Skuld, how does this thing of yours work?" Urd interrupted, examining the device in her hands. Skuld went on to explain how she had designed the Electro-Intellihancer for Keiichi. Listening to her sister's explanation, Belldandy astutely realized that Skuld, despite all her engineering prowess, had omitted a common-sense detail. Perhaps it was so obvious that Skuld had merely ignored mentioning it...
"Skuld, I hope you didn't design an artificial intelligence into it too, like you did with Banpei?" she asked her younger sister gently. Skuld's eyes went wide and her face turned even more pallid, confirming Belldandy's worst suspicions.
"Skuld, this just proves how much of a *little girl* you are! Or a maroon, as the mortals would put it," Urd started in, drawing a five-star angry glare from Skuld. Belldandy waved a hand at Urd to try and calm her down. Urd was closing in for the kill on this one.
"Urd, she's already sorrowful and suffering for making this mistake. Don't rub it in," she cautioned with a whisper.
"Okay, already! But I hope you remember this the next time *I* make a mistake!" Urd shot back, causing Belldandy to flinch with accession.
"Since the design was already so complex, I decided that it would be cool to throw in an A.I. As a fitting challenge to my abilities, of course! Sooo, what's wrong with it, anyway? Why shouldnt've I included an artificial intelligence, huh? Why not?!" Skuld argued, defending her decision.
Belldandy wanted to slap herself on the forehead because of Skuld's ignorance. Even she, a comparative novice in matters of advanced metatechnology...a beginner who possessed only a fraction of the mechanical abilities of her younger sister, not to mention a total lack of fascination with mechas and constructs that Skuld had...knew the obvious axioms about A.I.'s and biological modifiers.
"You realize that one of the fundamental tenets of constructing cyberorganic mechanisms is that you *never* include an artificial intelligence in a device designed to alter base physiology. An A.I., no matter how perfect, should not be given such an advantage of rigor over an organism's genetic or physiological fit-to-choosedness. This is a necessary procedural safeguard to prevent accidents like this from occurring," Belldandy stated flatly.
She felt Keiichi quivering with anger...
"You call this is a mere *accident*, Bell-chan?" Keiichi accused with a frustrated voice as he patted his mesocerebral head. Keiichi's reference and gesture was too much for Urd, who burst into unconstrained laughter. Despite her best efforts, Belldandy had to let a couple of very quiet giggles find their way out behind her hand. Despite her obvious empathy for her boyfriend, he *did* look rather funny, especially with his scowling expression. She *wanted* to feel guilty about her apparent dismissal of his present condition, but she was too caught up in the more tragicomic aspects of this new drama.
"Sorry, my love. I know that you're distraught..." Belldandy replied as Urd picked up where she had left off lecturing Skuld.
"Skuld-baka, you *know* that devices which adjust an individual's physiology by remote mechanical or arcanical means should be utilized *only* when directly monitored by their designer or creator. An A.I. is no replacement for a Goddess, Skuld! How would you like it if I programmed Banpei-kun to give you a new hairdo, and then simply left him alone to do whatever his A.I. felt was appropriate? He might decide that you'd look really cute with a hairstyle like Ootaki's..."
"Don't you dare, Big Sister!" Skuld flittered sharply.
"So how do you think *I* feel? Just look at me! How am I supposed to go anywhere outside of the house looking like *this*?!" Keiichi added, burning with frustration at the fact that Skuld didn't even pick up on Urd's obvious implication.
Skuld bowed her head as his words pricked her with guilt.
"Skuld, I know that...no matter what, you had only good intentions," Belldandy thought silently to herself.
"Here we go again! Once more I'm the butt of a joke! You're laughing at me because of this weird situation! Well...haha...very funny," he thought sarcastically, loud enough for the three sisters to hear.
"It *always* seems that I'm the one who bears the brunt of some 'accident' or cosmic screwup on the part of one of you three! Just like when I got changed in a 'female' version of myself because of your hapless Goddess bungling. Then I get taunted or tortured because of some private joke you share. Much as I love Belldandy, I really can't stand it sometimes!" Keiichi clamored angrily.
Three Goddesses choked on their breath, overwhelmed by Keiichi's ill-tempered bent of thought.
"Keiichi, don't *scream*! And *I* most certainly am not making fun of you!" Belldandy said roundly. His thoughts were cannonfire loud in her mind, shaking her with an earthquake-like mental punch.
"Yeah, and I don't think this transformation is funny...at least for the most part. Besides, when you're in love with a Goddess, you've gotta buy the bag, lover boy," Urd added, confronting his self-pity. Sighing with irony, she added, "Unlike some mortals I know."
Belldandy disfavored Urd's inconstancy; her sister was laughing at poor Keiichi just a moment earlier. She felt an impulse to chew Urd out, but held her tongue. Things were *already* tense...
"So, let me get this straight. Skuld's mecha design incorporates an Artificial Intelligence. However, her A.I. lacks certain multicambral intuitive matrices because she skimped on the ethical subroutine daemons...perhaps because she didn't take the time to fully integrate the polygated nanoprocessors with the multitronic..."
"See! Listen to him! This just proves that it *works*!" Skuld said triumphantly, leaping in the air with glee. Her sense of shame was put to flight by Keiichi's dexterous assessment of her mecha's shortcomings. He was definitely smarter...*tons* smarter than before. Skuld didn't even take offense to his criticism; after all, he was *Keiichi*. Besides, she was totally proud of him for being so observant. No mere mortal could even begin to comprehend the technological marvels of engineering that went into her Intellihancer...the mecha that Keiichi was critiquing so matter-of-factly. But if it had been Megumi or one of her own sisters finding fault with her invention...
Urd sighed, putting a hand to her forehead as she shook her head in dismay.
"It should be relatively simple to create new command logic multi-routines which will enable it to retromorph any neurobiological changes it caused," Keiichi assessed. His suddenly becalmed manner was very strange under the circumstances, an alteration which was very disturbing to Belldandy. In the space of a few minutes, he had transformed from boiling over with fright...to an almost icecool scientific detachment from his own circumstances. Engaging his intellect seemed to sublimate his emotionality.
"If his intelligence is boosted, what else could be changed as well?" she wondered with concern.
"Um...Keiichi. I don't know how to break this to you, but how are you..heehee..going to fit *this* on your head?" Urd said, brandishing the mecha...and then dissolving into hysterical laughter. Again.
"Dammit!" Keiichi and Skuld said in unison. Watching as Urd pitched her mockery, Skuld remembered something important. Something about the delicate balance between electronics, micro-transporters and chemicals. Something about the Electro-Intellihancer being designed to be worn on the head; a relatively stable part of the body. It was not engineered to withstand jostling. Urd was treating it like a windup toy.
"DON'T SHAKE IT!" Skuld commanded Urd with a mishmash of threat and sheer panic in her voice.
Urd looked at her *little* sister, resentful because Skuld had the audacity to use *that* demanding tone of voice towards her. Once more, Skuld had failed to accord her the necessary respect...which was even more unforgivable because this mishap was completely Skuld's fault. She looked at the mecha, then back at Skuld, grinning mischievously.
"Oh...you mean like *this*?" Urd said gleefully as she tossed the Electro-Intellihancer up in the air.
A little too hard...

*Crash*

"Ooops!" Urd said as she caught the mecha as it rebounded off of the ceiling beam. It was no longer glowing or humming. Several coils and jagged glass filaments now stuck out of the Electro-Intellihancer at odd angles.
"You totally BROKE it, Big Sister!" Skuld shouted, her face rigid with angry shock.
"This is great! In fact, this is *wonderful*!" Keiichi bewailed with a rich sarcasm. "The biggest test in my life is in two days...and there's only one machine on the planet that can get me back to normal...and now it's *trashed*!!!"

* * * * * * * *

"Things are always so *crazy* at my house!" Megumi exclaimed. This morning, she had spilled orange juice on the new imported white Swiss wool sweater Genji had bought her during her Hokkaido skiing trip. All because she happened to be eating breakfast when she first encountered her brother and his enlarged head. Unbelievably, Urd had carelessly broken the mecha that Skuld had built...thus delaying the most obvious way to restore Keiichi back to health.
Once she was informed of his 'enhanced' intelligence, Megumi was sorely tempted to take advantage of circumstances and ask her brother to do review her finals projects for her. In much the same way her beauty had been unintentionally enhanced by Belldandy three hundredfold last summer, now her brother was "Exoflop computer' smart. But there was no pill that could reverse *his* change.
Skuld, Urd and Keiichi weren't speaking to each other. The very same three people whose joint effort was required in order to return Keiichi to normal. Her big brother had the most important examination of his life coming up on Wednesday. In fact, everyone she knew was frantic as the upcoming midterms pulled their concerns futurewards. The seniors planning to go to grad school were absolutely whipcased with stress.
Sora listened as Megumi rattled off a litany of frustrations plaguing her home life. Dressed in her trademark plaid skirt, thermals, sweater-vest and dress white blouse, Sora could only nod her head.
Megumi was on autopilot chatter mode...

* * * * * * * *

"Where's Keiichi? He knew we hadda really important club meetin' taday! Where's da little rat, Megumi?" Tamiya bellowed, the very picture of irritation. Ootaki raised an eyebrow, nudged his mirrored wirerims down his nose, and fixed his attention on Megumi as well.
"Yeah, where's the ne'er do well?" Ootaki added.
"Ne'er do well?" Megumi remarked slyly at Ootaki's turn of phrase.
"Well, I *am* a graduate student!" Ootaki justified.
"And all we're goin' ta talk 'bout is da next major N.I.T.M.C.C. race!" Tamiya added with feigned sarcasm. Megumi sensed that something *big* was afoot; her two sempai were blistering with energy. Once more, she had to cover for her brother. She wished Belldandy was here, so *she* would have to do the explaining.
"Well, as much as you guys expect me to be my brother's keeper, there's nothing I could do in this case. Keiichi had to stay home today. Sick with a headache," Megumi answered with the first excuse that swept into her mind. Well, it was *kinda* the truth...
Sora almost giggled at the reference, her eyes twinkling underneath her round wirerims.
"Well, he's gonna be a really important part of dis new project, so tell him ta get well soon!" Tamiya said, buying her excuse. "And da next time, tell 'im to be responsible an *call in* if he's gonna be sick!"
"When *isn't* Keiichi important to anything this club does?" Megumi observed aloud, earning a couple of giggles from the underclassmen members.
Sometimes life rings one with fools...
"Okay...so what are you guys talking about? What's the big news?" Sora asked.
"Ahem...well, we had a big meeting of the club's 'upper administrative level' last week," Ootaki started to explain.
"Yes, we did," Chihiro interrupted as she rushed in the door to the Whirlwind Shop where the club had been holding its meetings. A waft of chill February air followed her, visible as smoke.
"And what we figured out is that this club is getting mega-lame! The N.I.T. Motor Club has been resting on its laurels after you guy's victory last year in the Solar Car Competition! Consequently, I decided that we need a challenge. We need something to inject some pride back into the club. Something which poses a *major* challenge to our skills!" Chihiro piped out.
"So what are we going to do? Race snowmobiles? After all, it's only the middle of winter! There aren't any road races during this time of year," Sora interjected cynically. Chihiro ignored her obvious sarcasm.
"Despite the irreverent opinions of some of our *freshman* members, I do have a well-formulated plan, don't I boys?" Chihiro cuttingly remarked.
"Yes Ma'am!" Tamiya and Ootaki snapped back in response.
"Hey! I'm a *sophomore*! Remember, Ms. Club President?" Sora said half-indignantly. She knew that she was out of her league when it came to challenging the founder of the club...and her occasional employer. Chihiro had returned from America just in time for the "Karaoke Party from Hell" that Cevn threw on Christmas Eve last year. Sora had attempted to tell Chihiro that night that she was now a second-year student at N.I.T. But Chihiro got really drunk, ostensibly because she didn't like American beer or wine. Sora had reminded her repeatedly since then, but Chihiro just kept forgetting.
"Sorry, Sora. I'm just all fired up...and I don't suffer insolence from newbies too well. As a matter of fact, I *do* have just the right idea to kick-start this club back to its former level of enthusiasm! Have I ever steered you guys wrong?" Several members silently shook their heads.
Reaching behind her, she whipped a cylinder out of her backpack with a dramatically deft move that reminded Megumi of a samurai sword draw.
"Behold!" Chihiro shouted, withdrawing a tightly rolled poster from the cardboard tube. Pinning it to the table with her hands, she tried to unfurl it. Halfway unrolled, the poster recoiled and rolled itself back up. Ootaki and Tamiya snickered as Chihiro went beet red with embarrassment.
"Behold...again!" she announced as she struggled with the task of unrolling the poster and tacking it up on the wall, seemingly angry at its impertinence.
Megumi jostled with the others to get a glimpse of the poster. The centerpiece of the photocollage played a beauty shot of a streamlined Nissan racecar against a richly forested nature scene. A bevy of admiring gasps and murmurs filled the room. The car possessed a lovely mechanical grace, almost feminine in nature. No wonder Chihiro had brought the poster. A car like this would inspire anyone with even the slightest interest in mechanics.
Then Chihiro read the title below it:

"Nissan R390 hybrid version GT1. Le Mans Grand Prix, 1998."

"No way. You gotta be kidding?" Megumi mumbled under her breath, suddenly suspicious about where this dramatic unveiling was going...
She had met Chihiro several times during her freshman year at N.I.T. When Chihiro returned from Europe and took on her brother in that insane micromotorcycle race...and *beat* him...Megumi realized that this was no ordinary woman. She had a passion for racing that bordered on the hyperbolic. After a few more crazy racing stunts, Megumi had to admit that Chihiro's gearbox was just a little too loosely wound.
As if to confirm Megumi's suspicions, Chihiro was aglow with an unbridled enthusiasm, momentarily forgetting the Club members as she stared at the poster as if it was the portrait of a lover. Tamiya and Ootaki were making circular motions with their fingers next to their temples, pointing at Chihiro from behind her back.
Megumi and Sora giggled despite themselves.
"Tamiya...Ootaki...*Stop*! Stop it this instant!" Chihiro commanded. "I can see your shadows, you saps!"
Tamiya and Ootaki halted in mid-gesture as the whole club exploded into tense laughter at Chihiro's 'bust' of the two sempai.
"With all due respect, Chihiro-sempai...this is a *student* motorcycle club. What you are planning is for us to take on the pinnacle event of the racing world. And it's in *France*, for crisesakes! The only French I know is french fries and french kissing," Ootaki said with a concerned frown.
"Which doesn't go too good together," someone commented.
Megumi felt her facial nerves give way at this...she wasn't the only one who harbored reservations about Chihiro's strange giving-calling. And obviously, she had company among her Motor Club teammates. Tamiya and Ootaki, who were usually cowed by their sempai, Chihiro, were furtively looking at the team members, trying to wordlessly dissuade them.
"Gather round, because I want to tell you all a little story. Listen up! As you know, last year I was in America finishing my post-grad school studies at Cal Polytech. One weekend a year ago this month, I happened to catch a race being broadcast on ESPN4. During this race, I..snff..saw a team of racers that the TV anchors termed 'student misfits from Japan'..snffsnff..win a very special race, defeating..snff..a whole field of some of the brightest corporate sponsors!" she said, struggling to maintain her composure. Wiping her eyes with her sleeve, Chihiro walked over to a section of the Whirlwind shop with a beatup paint tarp hangin against the wall. She carefully pulled the paint spattered drop away...
"And I saw that..snff..race team walk off with *that* trophy over there!" she exclaimed with pride as she pointed at the Solar Car championship trophy.
"Oh..my..Goddess!" Megumi heard Sora gasp as the exquisitely crafted trophy caught everyone's attention. The room rippled to an eerie silence as each Club member felt the swarming emotional impact of what they were seeing. The last time anyone on the team had seen this trophy up close was the night they had won the Solar Federation race. The next day, the trophy was commandeered by N.I.T. officials and hidden away for several weeks, until it was "unveiled"...locked away in a huge glass display case in the central lobby of the Admin. Building.
Megumi glanced at Sora in shock, then at Tamiya and Ootaki. The two grad students shrugged their shoulders and smiled smugly as if to say "*she made us do it!".
"They *stole* it from the Admin. Building!" Megumi realized with a spinetingling shock. The trophy was displayed on a decorated table with all the conspicuity of a revered kamidana or butsudan. Ootaki had even put a large offering bowl in front of it, filled with several sticky-rice balls and a couple nori sushi rolls.
"When I saw all your faces on my TV, halfway around the globe, I never felt prouder in my life! Proud to have started this club. Proud to see what heights it had scaled. I want to be proud again. I was..snff..in *America* when you guys won the Solar Car Competition. I wasn't *here*, with you...where I belonged. I completely missed it!!! And no matter what anybody says...that trophy you guys *earned* belongs *here*! With *our* Club!"
"Chihiro can sure work a crowd," Sora whispered to her. Megumi couldn't help but be moved by the sight of the trophy. She felt a momentary sense of regret that her brother wasn't here to experience this emotionally-laden moment.
"Now, I want to be here, with you, as we take on an even greater challenge! I've put *a lot* of planning and work..snff..into this. I've called in every favor anyone ever owed me. I've spent hundreds of hours in discussions with various corporate types. I've done all the groundwork. For you guys. For the club."
Megumi felt a chill tingle through her wrists and fingers; partially from her rekindled victory-pride, partially from the realization that Chihiro was totally earnest about taking the Club to France to race in the Le Mans.
"This *isn't* my idea of a joke. I *really* think we can make it to Le Mans! Is anyone with me on this?" Chihiro noted, finished her rousing speech.
Silence filled the Whirlwind Motorcycle Shop with a windy whisper. Megumi glanced around the steelframed portable building; she could tell that every N.I.T. Motor Club member was moved by Chihiro's appeal. *She* was moved as well, feeling brimmed with a powerful sense of spirit...a strong desire and an even stronger determination.
"Can anyone here say 'Vive le France!'?" Chihiro asked with ardent enthusiasm.
"Peorth can," Megumi whispered a private joke to herself.
"Nah. But ah sez...'Vive Nekomi'!" Tamiya said unexpectedly. A moment later, Megumi threw her caution to the winds, raised her hand and moved that the N.I.T club commit itself fully to Chihiro's plan.
It was either going to be the biggest racing exploit in the history of Japanese motor sports...or the biggest folly. But the N.I.T. Motor Club was built on a foundation mixture of both; Megumi's comrades were quick to seize the moment and vote unanimously to undertake the attempt.
"Gee, this is *really* going to be fun!" Sora noted after the vote was finished.

* * * * * * * *

"You gotta be kidding! Chihiro wants us to rebuild an old Formula 1-type race car? And then enter it in some endurance race? She's totally, completely, absolutely...*nuts*!" Keiichi exclaimed, his voice raptured with incredulous disbelief.
"Yep, as if there's anyone in the Club who doesn't know that by now!" Megumi agreed.
"So?" Keiichi asked, reluctantly wanting to hear more about Chihiro's crazy inspiration.
"Somehow, our N.I.T. M.C.C. founder got a line on a donor who wants to give it to our club. Some top-level exec at Nissan who knows her father. After all, you know how Chihiro's family has all sorts of connections. Two of her uncles were on the NISMO...the Nissan Motorsport International design team. By the way, the car we're supposed to get is one of the R390 GT1s. The R390s won several endurance races in the late 1990s prototype touring car racing cycle. The engine is a VRH 35L II twin turbocharged 6-cylinder unit. It has an X-Trac 6 speed sequential gearbox and carbon fiber brakes. It's been garaged since 2001, so the chassis obviously will have some defects like deformed metal, loose joints and rust...but the motor checks out okay according to Chihiro. In fact, the exec who was keeping it in storage is a fastidious car collector; he guaranteed her that it is in tip-top shape!" Megumi accounted of the recent events at the club.
"Sounds like this is Chihiro all over the place...hatching another one of her foolcrazy ideas!"
"And that isn't the worst of it, big bro! Chihiro wants us to drop almost all of our club fund on repairs and upgrades...and travel."
"Huh? Travel? Where?"
"Does the name Le Mans mean anything to you?" Keiichi swallowed hard as the improbable scenario formed in his mind.
"You..gotta..be..shitting..me!!!! She can't be *serious*?" he said, deadly serious. Megumi nodded her head, and grinned at her brother as he put a hand to his double-X sized forehead in stunned dramatic disbelief.
"In fact, the club's already voted on it. She can be very persuasive, you know."
"*What* did they vote on? The car? The travel? I'd love to fly to France to witness the running of the Le Mans as much as anyone, maybe drive on that legendary track with all its chicanes, but..."
"We'll have to file our request right away, because they'll be selecting from the pool of eligible teams in late March. If we're picked, we'll go in late April for a series of technical and administrative verifications...and then we'll race in the pre-qualifying trials..."
"WHAT?! We'll *RACE*?!!!" Keiichi shouted, interrupting her.
"...and *if* we qualify, then on June 7th, 20XX the N.I.T. Motor Cycle Club will fly to Paris, France, and then travel by bus to Le Mans. On June 11th, the N.I.T. entry will be weighed in, scrutineered and judged. Following this, we'll enter in qualifying heats the next two days. If we make the cut, then we'll race in the Diamond Anniversary Le Mans Gran Prix on June 16th, 20XX."
"We're going to *race*? This...is total insanity! An absurd fantasy. The odds are...lemme see...uh, roughly 1:(2.4 x 10-9th power) cubed! The club doesn't even have that kind of money..." Keiichi pointed out.
"Remember that 2 million yen which a grateful N.I.T. president allocated us for a club fund because of our winning the Solar Car Race? According to Sora, we've barely scratched it. Not to mention that Nissan is sponsoring our entry with some cold hard megayen."
"I can just see it...Sora's probably all fired up on this idea!" Keiichi said in a low voice, than shifted to imitate Sora's chirpysweet voice. "I can just hear it now...'Just think, guys! It'll be *fun* for us to race in the Le Mans!'"
Megumi couldn't help but giggle at his vaude imitation of her best friend.
"Yep! Sora thinks it's going to be really fun to race in the Le Mans! So I guess that means we're going to have a lot of fun!" Megumi noted.
"Chihiro!" Keiichi said with disgust. "She must have had this planned for a long time! She even lined up Nissan as a *sponsor*? The nerve of that damned woman! A car like that costs over a *hundred million yen*! Can you imagine what the parts would cost? What if we screw up their prized car?"
"*Our* prized car," Megumi corrected. "We get the car, as long as Nissan gets the big sticker space on the doors. I kinda like the idea myself. Besides, I always wanted to visit Paris. Especially with Genji!" Megumi sighed dreamily.
"Earth to Megumi! This isn't going to be a dreamy romantic scene...you, the Eiffel Tower, your boyfriend, a bottle of French champagne, and a violinist playing next to your dinner table!" he teased in a serious voice. "We don't even have access to high end quality racing parts..."
"Lemme see. My boyfriend, who *is* a full-fledged Club member as I last recall...has a family that's worth...oh, let's figure...about one and a half trillion yen. That sounds about right. He could ask for an advance on his scholastic allowance for a few months, and we'd have a few mill to play around with. Add to that Tamiya's new girlfriend, from the same said billionaire family. Chihiro's family is also quite wealthy..."
"So what? That only reduces the odds by 14/64. We don't have the engineering qualifications..."
"Which is why I asked Chihiro to fax the specs to Whirlwind tonight. We presently have a member of our club whose IQ is somewhere up there in orbit with the new Hubble/Suzuki telescope."
"You mean *me*? Huhn-uh!!! What if I refuse?"
"Could you really face Chihiro, Tamiya, Ootaki and the rest of us if you did? Not to mention that *I* wouldn't forgive you!" Megumi shot back, relying on her strong suite. One of the advantages of being a woman with lofty ambitions and the gall to pursue them was the fact that she could outmaneuver her older brother when it came to a pinch. This was definitely a tight pinch...everything depended on whether or not she could press Keiichi into service.
While he still had his enhanced mental abilities.
"Let's face it, big brother! You wound up this way by a quirk of fate. I don't think there's anything weird or unethical about taking advantage of this opportunity to create the best racecar design possible!"
"Well...I suppose. Okay. You got a point there, sis. And I wouldn't want to get on your bad side," he teased, playfully swatting her with a rolled up paper.
"So you'll do it?" she asked excitedly.
"I haven't decided for sure yet. If I do decide to help, I'll be limited by the current state-of-the-art engineering techniques. That lowers the odds to 1:12,424. But we can't just rely on designs and engineering alone! We need *three* drivers! Hopefully in the midst of her rah-rah gung-ho speechifying, Chihiro managed to drive the fact home to you guys that the Le Mans is a *24-hour* race! I, for one, have never even driven *anything* faster than 260kph! Those cars drive on regular highways at *350kph*! Besides, I don't know if I can drive that long. We'd have to get someone outside of the club to drive...which would make it someone else's project."
"We *do* have three drivers. And all of them are N.I.T. Motor Club members. One of them drove for almost 40 hours last summer in a racing simulation, and the other one..." Megumi said, swallowing a couple deep gulps as she chose her words carefully.
"Eh? *Nooo way*. You mean that..." Keiichi looked at her with accusing eyes.
"*Ulp*" Megumi gulped, afraid of how her brother would react to this particular spin on the club's plan. She had played with the idea that when she broached the news to Keiichi, she would present herself as initially resistant to Chihiro's idea; when actually, she supported it. Well, mostly supported it in principle. Thinking she was against it at first, Keiichi would be easier to sway to her view. In his mind, he'd start off thinking that she was in accord with his outlook on the subject. This tactic was usually successful in the past. But this...might be stretching it a bit. Especially with a mega-smart version of her older brother.
"The other driver has a long-held ambition to drive in a race. She's enthusiastic, and really thinks this is going to be fun, and she...
"Sora?!" Keiichi blurted in a scratchy voice of exasperation. He didn't need his enhanced intelligence to hear her pixie voice in his head, saying her renowned tag-phrase. "Sora...and *you*...will be the other two drivers?!"
"Yeps!!! Sora and I are going to be on your driving team for the first two legs. They voted us in this afternoon," Megumi countered with all the enthusiasm she could muster.
"But you're...*girls*!!! This *increases* the odds to 1:1,364,981. And you're my *sister*! What if something happens to you?" he said in a worrisome voice.
"Overlooking that you called me a 'girl' for the moment...what's with all these odds you keep quoting, Big Brother? Besides, you ever give pause to think how *I* feel every time my big brother goes off to drive in a race? You haven't forgotten who is the BMX Racing Queen, have you? Huh? Besides, does the name Tomiko Yoshikawa mean anything to you?" Megumi fired back, feeling indignant at his waggish disregard for her abilities.
"Okay, so you're the Racing Queen. But this is wayyy different! And I don't know of any Tomiko...Yoshi...no. Waitaminute! She drove in the Le Mans back in 1995!" he said, remembering every name on a list he had seen in a magazine years ago.
"Yep!" Megumi said with a triumphant smile.
"*She* drove in the big race! So your little chauvinist 'girls can't race' argument is nothing but blown-out sour sushi mash," Megumi concluded with a verbal flourish, grinning like a she-wolf eyeing a stray lamb.
"All this 'hyper' intelligence courtesy of Skuld...and my brother *still* can't win an argument with me!" she privately observed with pride. She almost wanted to giggle...
"But...*Sora*?" Keiichi didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the vision of little Sora in a big racing car. It seemed that this was another case of 'when the cat's away, the foxes will play'.
"If I was only there, I could have talked sense into the other club members before they voted to invest in this foolhardy adventure!" Keiichi remonstrated aloud. Megumi made a moue with her mouth, and then delivered the fatal thrust.
"Why?! Remember how everyone thought it was a big joke when we entered the Solar Car Competition? And then we majorly kicked ass and *won* that race! And by the way, the trophy is now in Chihiro's Whirlwind Shop. Just in case you've forgotten what it looks like, you can stop into your workplace and see it, any time of the day!" Megumi shouted, getting in his face so close that he could smell her mint-gum breath.
Keiichi felt his resistance squelch beneath the thrust of Megumi's argument. They *had* done the impossible, last spring. They had done the impossible again; it must have been some feat to snatch the trophy from the Admin. Building. It was one of N.I.T.'s prize possessions, kept in a locked and alarmed display.
"But then again, it was the *Le Mans* that they were talking about..." Keiichi cursed under his breath, realizing that he had just been rope-a-doped by his little sister into helping them. He knew full well that if he didn't offer his help, they wouldn't stand "a grasshoppers' chance in a typhoon" of even finishing the race.
"Megumi..." he finally sighed in a whining voice, letting his sister know that she had won him over to the inevitable. Which resulted in the usual sisterly tackle and tickle, punctuated with a couple pillow blows to his oversized head.

* * * * * * * *

Belldandy wanted to 'fix' Keiichi's condition with a spell as soon as she saw what Skuld's device had done to him. Yet, she was afraid that a magical spell might exacerbate the problem in much the same manner as Urd had done when Mara changed Keiichi to a lizard three years ago. And Urd was much more skilled than she in magicks. Her best skill was wisdom, which didn't seem to offer much under these trying circumstances.
A sense of guilt bested her, as she found herself placing the blame squarely on her own shoulders for this mishap. In a way, it *was* her fault. Skuld had simply observed her pining away for her boyfriend, and had tried to rectify the situation with juvenile haste. She had to admit that some times, her longing for Keiichi tended to extend itself into a mini-drama...as she would pout and sigh and mope around the house in a very un-Goddess-like manner when she was heartsick for her beloved mortal boyfriend.
"Urd warned me about being so moody around Skuld..." she chided herself.
Yet, despite Skuld's best intentions...*this* had happened.
But in the end, Skuld was working hard to rebuild a device that could fit Keiichi's enlarged head...and in record time, no less. Belldandy had 'motivated' her with the threat of a household ban on ice cream.
Despite the current turmoil, there was one very bright spot in the Morisato household...reprieve against her worries about Keiichi's condition. In fact, every time she turned her thoughts towards it, Belldandy sensed her heart being honeyed with a joyful cheer.
This morning, Kodama, Hikari and Senrigan had visited her. She could tell immediately that the three Ninjettes were ecstatic about their new Ninja companions. Kodama and Hikari were extremely high-spirited...far more than usual...while Senrigan seemed aglow with a telltale feminine blush.
It was then that Belldandy found out that Senrigan had changed her name to Nojomi.
"It was her first time with a male, so we decided that it would be proper to give her an adult name...now that she's a real woman!" Hikari said with martial pride as Nojomi blushed with a meek grin.
"Yeah, she didn't waste any time with Musashi!" Kodama said with a knowing laugh.
"Or maybe he didn't waste any time with her!" Hikari commented, reducing two of the three Ninjettes to girlish giggles.
"H..hey you guys! Cut it out! Just because you..." Nojomi protested. With this, the three engaged in vigorous arguing; a sign that they were very content with the new changes in their lives. Belldandy had watched with amusement as their banter spilled over into playful sparring; each Ninja girl showing off her Ninjitsu skills with uninhibited glee.
Which meant that they were happily in love.
Belldandy let her thoughts stray to the three former rats...and silently wished them well in their relationship with these three Ninjette girls.
"What had Ratty called them? Victims...?" she thought with a winsome smile. If they had half as much fun as the three Ninja girls had on their 'honeymoons', then regret would be the last thing on the minds of three former rats...who were now three deeply lovestruck Ninjas by this point.
Unfortunately, *her* own 'victim' was holed up in his bedroom because of his mesocerebral condition. Belldandy downed the rest of her tea in an un-ladylike gulp, and decided to go to Skuld Labs and 'motivate' her sister some more.

* * * * * * * *

"Aha!!!!"
Mara stared at the framed photo she had just discovered in Isilblius's room. Somehow, she just *knew* that Isilblius was keeping a secret from her.
It had taken her a week, but she was finally able to circumvent the shielding curse that he put up to protect his room. Her Ultimate Demon charge had impulsively decided to take a brief sojourn to visit some of the other Multiverse Sectors. Mara was splendidly happy that Isilblius was finally out of her hair, so she had taken advantage of his absence to snoop. His spells were very powerful...yet ripely simple to unravel. Mara was relieved to have her lair to herself, the first time since she had 'birthed' Isilblius. She regarded the image in the picture like Hamlet regarding the skull of Yorick.
"Alas, poor Urd, I knew her well. Part Goddess of infinite jest, part Demoness of most excellent fancy...bwa hah hah!" she parodied. Her Isilblius was *way* out of the Goddesses' league in Divine firepower. Pretty much out of anyone's league. This smuggled photograph could mean only one thing...that he was obsessed with Urd.
But this...
This was Fate twisting itself into its most amusingly vulgar tangle yet. Mara had been secretly amused by Isilblius' reaction to being spurned by her. He was pissed...and then he had pouted and withdrawn to his room for several days.
"And all this time, I thought he was just suffering from the usual teenage angst. Meanwhile...he was plotting *this*!" she said to Urd's picture. She had suspected that the horny little devil would turn his attentions towards one of the Demon Grief Office agents currently on assignment on the Earthrealm.
But this...
This only confirmed that Isilblius was a Demon with the highest grade of deviltry in his blood. Mara regarded Urd's sweet face in the photo with a sneering smile.
Urd's sickeningly demure face. A false image...as Urd was anything but demure.
"This is going to be *hilarious*!!! How are you going to react when the most powerful Demon in existence makes known his sexual inclinations towards you? Goddess of Love, indeed! This will give an entirely new meaning to the word 'crush'! Hahhhahahaah!"
And Mara would witness the chase...the ensuing chaos...from a front row seat.
But this...
Mara chuckled with malign joy as she thought about Belldandy and Skuld. A Demon like Isilblius would chew them up and spit them out without as much as an eyeblink. He had recently sent all three Norns forward in time...and made it look effortlessly easy. Doing that to the *Norns*...in their own realm of Time! And they barely made it back alive, from the snippets of conversation she had picked up while her Sere-Hawks surveiled the temple. She was still amazed that he had even pulled it off. And that was *years* ago, as far as his rapidly developing Demonic age-equivalent went.
He was only a *child* then...
Mara knew that the Urd's two sisters possessed strong protective instincts. Once Isilblius made his intentions clear, Belldandy and Skuld's sibling protection attitudes would manifest in force; bringing both of them into a face off with the Ultimate Demon.
"Hahahahaha!" Mara was elated beyond belief by her good fortune.
But this...
Mara realized with vicarious pride that Isilblius must have obtained the photo from that accursed temple the Goddesses lived in. Which meant that he had *already* been there; easily thwarting detection by Skuld's trashpile robotic servants.
The only time Mara had left him to himself was during Urd's karaoke party and the holidays...when she returned to Vanagdrasil to visit her parents, Baeeal and Myducia. He must have performed his perfidy then.
Now that he could come and go as he pleased in Belldandy and Keiichi's temple home, things are definitely going to heat up!
"This...is...going...to...be...a...riot!" Mara said, then returned the picture to its place.

* * * * * * * *

Keiichi examined the draft specs for the Nissan R390 GT1. He instantly realized that he would have to trim at least 200kg from its chassis weight. A polymer mesh would do the trick. The wishbone braking system would need to be reinforced, if not rebuilt, because of carbon decay over the past several years. The engine compression would need to be increased as well without deforming the aluminum...
It would be a breeze to redesign this car!
He scribbled notes and sketches all over the drawing board. Increase the cam sizes while reducing the friction by optimizing the plenum boost pressure. Create a more efficient engine stat computer system by employing nodes, rather than a bulky central unit. Remold the carbon chassis with a magnesium weave for greater flexibility, recontour the spoiler and lower it slightly, reroute the cooling system to maximize engine endurance...
"I better make these notes comprehensible, because when Skuld manages to restore my condition to normal, I'll need a veritable exegesis to decipher whatever I'm writing now," he told himself.
The novel "Flowers for Algernon" kept coming to mind as he furiously calculated formulae and designs.

* * * * * * * *

Skuld had rings under her eyes as she adjusted the headset to fit more snugly on Keiichi's head. Belldandy and Urd were watching on, both of their faces sweatily apprehensive. Skuld was disappointed in their lack of confidence in her. But then again, Elder Sister didn't have enough confidence in *herself* to simply cast one of her spells to return Keiichi to normal. And Big Sister had simply refused to "bail her out".
Which told Skuld that this was a very delicate matter to Belldandy.
With a flash of regret, Skuld sensed that she would miss this Keiichi. Not the physical Keiichi sitting on the floor in front of her...he was completely *ugly* with that big turtle head of his. But the intellectual attributes of this Keiichi; now she would definitely miss *that*. She had tested him, playfully creating deliberate mistakes that forced him to challenge her on several areas of her A.I. design for the new Electro-Intellihancer Mk V. His problem-solving efforts were impressive: he had turned out right almost every time. Skuld grudgingly admitted that he was somewhat close to being her equal in mechanization engineering.
"But not even quite my equal," she reminded herself. Despite his enhanced intelligence, Keiichi didn't have a clue as to the higher-level Yggdrasilian concepts she so easily utilized. He was still used to thinking with Earthrealm orientations. Three...maybe four dimensions. Not the nine dimensions that she was used to.
Belldandy and Urd had repeatedly warned her not to reveal 'secrets' to him. As a result, Skuld had a severe headache from the constant mental shielding she had to employ to keep him from reading her mind.
Not to mention that she quickly learned that she needed to prevent *herself* from picking up on very clumsy, yet powerful thoughtcasts pounding around in her mind; the result of Keiichi's blarehorn-loud telepathic shouts. If she had learned anything about Keiichi during the past two days they worked together on the E.I. Mk. V., she learned that he was *obsessed* with her sister! Every second of every moment, Belldandy was always on his mind; a mental and emotional anchor in the midst of the storm of his life.
"Ready?" she asked.
"Ready" he replied nervously.
"Power on!" she said as she hit the button on her remote.
The helmet began to glow with arcane energies...

* * * * * * * *

When I pry the veneer off, reaching past the pretenses, digging wetfingered between the ribs of the matter...I am a coward.
Years ago, I had lost any passion I had for living. The ark that was my lifeforce had floated adrift in a senseless depression. Then a Goddess came into my life and granted my deepest unspoken wish. Not to mention that she adorned my world with a host of unwished graces.
But...unlike Keiichi, I turned away from her. Unlike Keiichi, I didn't have the courage to face life and love with a Goddess. Granted, Belldandy's genteel nature is rarefied, while Urd's capricious nature is resolved. To Belldandy's soft breeze, Urd was like a tornado.
Shame is the most cyclical of emotions. Unbidden, it pervades my free thoughts with cryptic abandon, allowing me to cheapen myself by associating the irrational with the disconsolate. Shame plagues upon my self esteem, casting about irrational ideas like "I'm miserable because I make others miserable" or "I *have* to have a girlfriend." Shame even magnifies itself every time I think of those whom I disappointed by my squeamishness. The fact that I hurt Urd...also hurts them all.
But what we had between us never could bloom. So I chickened out and took the soft road towards destiny. Now I will never know if the dreams I wrote were ledgered upon my heart, or simply hidden inside of a drop of water, unreadable and unreachable.
As I contrasted myself to Keiichi, I realized that I never could fully appreciate the immense inner strength that he manifested. *He* could handle Urd. Well, maybe not handle her, but endure her tempestuous nature. All for Belldandy's sake.
He had lived with all three Goddesses for four years. From my perspective, this was nothing short of a superhuman feat. Urd's oft-demonstrated duality had caused him all sorts of grief, but Keiichi seemed to take her 'insane' alter-ego in stride. Of course, Keiichi always seemed to be a superhuman sort of guy in my eyes; obviously I was sensing a quality in him that Belldandy had fully appreciated when she decided to share her life with him.
Unlike myself. A flawed man who had no superhuman traits of courage and kindness whatsoever. I didn't have a supernatural side to me at all. Urd, the mural of her lifestyle being unstable and crazy, was probably drawn to me by the same qualities. She had heeded to me because I was crazy and heartsick. Watching the sun setting on the silver shore of apartment blocks stretching into the horizon towards the shadow-mountains of the southern Boso Peninsula, I agonized over my decision for the thousandth time.
I had wanted to hang a picture of the 'gang' on my wall, but instead of this, a cheap plastic Asahi clock adorned the corner, covering the patch of spackle I had put there after punching a hole in the wall a few days ago.
Like the hole in my heart.
All the anger I could muster towards Urd's addiction.
I had a chance to create my own heaven and share it with another...and I blew it...

*nokka nokka*

My doorbell without a bell announced my first visitor.

* * * * * * * *

Megumi comes off like a dynamo at times, filled with bursts of energy. This seemed to be one of those times. As soon as I let her in my studio apartment, she seemed to whirlwind about the place, asking questions and making comments about my apartment. Initially, I was totally embarrassed by the sparse trappings of my studio. I had a six-tatami room, with a standup kitchen and a toilet. About 17 square feet in the 'living room'. The closet for my futon was filled with boxes of books. More texts were piled on the floor with typical indie clutter.
Even worse, my nerves scrawled grit over my comfortability as I realized that Megumi could plainly see my futon 'bed'. I had never gotten over the fear of being molested in my own bed, so painfully often in childhood. Ofttimes, I would feel unbearably exposed and vulnerable if my sleeping quarters were open to anyone's view. This was one of those times...I had to fight an intense urge to flee my own apartment.
In fact, Megumi was sitting on it, because I only had a single small zabuton that I used for meditation. After a few compliments about my little slice of Japanese apartment living, she had simply plopped herself on the now-folded futon that served as a pseudo couch. In a way, I was glad that she was oblivious to my panic. Or was she?
So I offered my guest the futon...which she had already claimed as her own.
At least my apartment was clean. Disordered enough to qualify as a bachelor pad, to be sure. The sweet smell of incense was beginning to adhere to the walls. From my position, I was looking up to Megumi. She was about a foot above me, sitting cross-legged as I sat on the floor.
"Cevn-sensei, did you know that Urd's come back home?" she said after making some small talk.
"No. Not that I care," I answered, trying to appear unconcerned. Inside, the seat of my soul was turning loopdyloops at this bombshell news. I immediately suspected that Megumi was *up to something*.
"Oh, come *on*! Quit with the 'I don't care' crap!" she said with near-dudgeon. . "I know for a fact that you still care about her. A lot. So don't tape-loop your baka dishonesties with me!"
"Is this why you came here, to taunt me with the one doorway to a reality that I cannot be part of?"
"Cevn, you don't know how hard it's been on all of us since you moved out. Not just Urd, but..."
"Megumi, that is exactly why I moved here! Because I felt like being around you guys would just betray your feelings even more."
"You idiot! I *cried* the night you moved out! More than once, too. Because it felt like a big loss, from where I stand. In some ways, it was even worse then when you left for China unannounced. Because this time, I knew *why*...and I still couldn't stop you from going on your merry way. So now, I'm going to try and talk some sense into that idiot head of yours!" she said angrily.
"Look, you can't just hide here! This place has 'hole in the ground' written all over it...and you're not an ostrich! You need to learn a new language of the heart, or else you'll die inside," she said, confronting me with no withholds.
I was stunned by this. Was this the same Megumi, Keiichi's happy-go-lucky little sister? The same girl that sweetly asked me to be an 'adopted big brother' when I first arrived in Japan, because she wanted a mature male in her life? What a laugh! Me...a mature male figure? Now she was pulling me up, drawing up the most confrontational stance she could in the midst of this ocean of words.
"Okay, you got my attention! Now tell me why I should believe that anything has changed?" I asked, desperately hoping that she *could* convince me that something has changed.
"*You* need to change! You need to get some amae in that stubborn heart of yours!"
For the next hour, Megumi patiently explained amae to me. Not the academic amae that I had studied from scholars like Doi, Sato, Singer, Benedict and others. She used examples from her own life, teaching me what it *meant* to have a passively accommodating dependence on others. She explained that, in Japan, the child is raised within a context of total freedom, which is gradually enmasked in a series of increased demands to conform and be responsible in the steady march towards adulthood. She contrasted this with child rearing in America, where the child initially is strictly sanctioned, and then experiences a gradual and confusing release towards individualism. She reminded me that I had a group of close intimates in my life…her, Keiichi, the Goddesses, the N.I.T. crew, Sayoko...that I was completely avoiding.
From her perspective, I was viewing my allegiance to the group deconstructively, rather than constructively. Instead of seeing how my individually had been melded into the group, I was instead measuring the group by how it impacted my individuality. Thus, to her, my withdrawal from the household reeked of falseheartedness. She aptly described how she interpreted my withdrawal; in the social context, she told me that I was experiencing an illusion of an illusion...reacting to the distinct 'differentness' of Japanese culture by creating my own quasi-myths. Then I was employing these conceits to their fullest by withdrawing from my closest friends...an act of active dependence, because it was an *active rejection of dependence*!
That floored me.
But Megumi continued, arguing that, for the same reason, my dependence on Urd was superficial, because it was active, rather than passive.
So active in its nature...that it thwarted any possible healthy mutual dependence.
Megumi then confronted me on another illusion...the male illusion of the "perfect woman". She went for the throat. In her opinion, I was sabotaging my relationship with Urd because I expected *too much* from her! Megumi accurately observed that I was compensating for years of loneliness by using the 'perfect woman' orientation to shelter my heart. But it was actually doing little else but justifying...in a distorted fashion...my continuing attempts to make sense of all the woundings I had experienced in past relationships with women. By expecting too much from her, I was then poised to expect too much from myself; a standard I would always fail to achieve. Failing in this manner, I was only strengthening my view that I was even more of a loser.
In order for me to save myself from myself, Megumi stated baldly that I had to risk letting go of my unreasonable expectations on myself...and Urd. Plus, she demanded that it was absolutely vital that I needed to reinvigorate my relationships with my Makuhari friends.
I had no words to fence with. Since when did she become a psychologist? I realized with appreciation that Megumi had obviously *studied* to prepare herself for this.
During midterms, too.
I felt that I owed it to her to at least visit the temple. Once I agreed to do this, she forgot herself for a moment and tackled me to the ground with 'sisterly' enthusiasm, cuffing me lightly on the head and shoulders.
Then I told her about the irony of my birthday. I was born on Valentine's Day. I half-expected her to crack up laughing and call me a liar...so I showed her my N.I.T. Faculty ID to prove it to her.
"So now that you're *30*, I won't be able to trust you anymore!" she teased. I tried to conceal my misery: Megumi had exposed so many raw nerves in the past hour that I felt balled up emotionally...plus I was feeling like the golden years of my youth were going to flee away on my 30th birthday.
As she kissed me on the cheek after she put her winter coat on, I thanked God I didn't freak out on her! Guess this was one of those times she was really genki...

* * * * * * * *

"Oh...my...God!" Chihiro shouted in a gasping voice as she lifted up the back door of the semitrailer that contained their new racecar.
"Father didn't tell me about *you*," she purred to the car as she rested a leather gloved hand on its hood. The other N.I.T. club members were stuck by the strong emotional display from the normally uppity tomboyish Chihiro. Her back to them, she appeared to be sobbing gently.
"Chihiro...are you okay?" Tamiya and Ootaki asked nervously.
"Yes. I'm..snff..*incredibly* okay, you guys! Hey Keiichi! They sent us #32!" she said, her voice echoing inside the open truck trailer.
"You mean they sent us car #32? That's the car that placed 3rd in the 1998 Le Mans!" Keiichi commented incredulously, shivering more from nervousness than from the chill February air.
"This is one of the most famous racecars in all of Japan!" Chihiro explained to Keiichi, Megumi, Sora and the others. As if they didn't know...their faces were all filled with awe.
The racecar in the back of the semi was a beaut, no doubt. It still sported its numerous racing sponsor decals with pride. Its aerodynamic contours retained their futuristic harmony, even though it was over ten years old. #32 still sported a bright cherry red chassis; the paint sparely faded and peeling in only a few places.
Cherry red. The N.I.T. team had never raced anything with such a bright color. Never had raced anything like *this* car.
Almost 500 Nissan technicians had created her in a burst of engineering genius a decade ago. Keiichi knew that a decade was almost forever in terms of design technology timeframes, especially when that technology was intended to probe the limits of the possible.
Chihiro turned to her N.I.T. teammates, tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Isn't she...adorable?" she said in tearful admiration.
"Wowwwww!" Tamiya said, finally giving word to his awe. This was simply the most incredible car he had ever laid eyes on. A dream car. A *super* car.
"This car costs a h..hundred million yen!" Ootaki gasped, so nervous he was shivering. "D..don't break it!"
"You have da parts list?" Tamiya asked Sora.

* * * * * * * *

Belldandy and Skuld had left to spend some quality sister time at an ice cream shoppe. Urd had the house all to herself. Today was the day before Valentine's Day. Tommorrow, her sister would be especially sappy around Keiichi...which would give her a perfect excuse to "drop in" on Cevn's apartment. After all, the Lord had hinted that she should visit him on Valentine's Day.
His birthday.
She was watching a daytime soap on the TV when she heard a knocking on the shoji door to her hobby room. She floated up and pulled the door aside.
"CEVN!!!" she shouted, besides herself at his unexpected visit. She felt her heart fluttering at the sight of him. With a determined effort, she calmed her exuberance down to a low roar as she invited him in. The last thing she wanted him to expect was that she would simply invite him back in her life...after he made a fitting apology, of course.
"Urd, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry for what happened between us, and that I want us to try again. To try and make things work..."
Urd was so stunned, she dropped the remote.

* * * * * * * *