Love Hina Fan Fiction / Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex Fan Fiction ❯ Ghost In The Hinata District ❯ Ghost In The Hinata District ( Chapter 1 )

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Togusa crept up the street, sensing nothing evil but something strange just the same. The fog bank rolled up behind him, enveloping him. He turned to regard it and saw a small crowd of old men and a couple women emerge. The Tachikoma stepped aside, scanning them with a visible laser. “Safe,” it radioed him. Togusa reholstered his revolver.

 

“Memories and dreams,” murmured one of the old geezers.

 

“Dreams and memories,” murmured another.

 

“Times past and futures present,” said a third.

 

“Circles close, doors open,” said the fourth one.

 

“Secrets and answers,” said the last and the fog billowed over him, the crowd vanishing once more.

 

“Okay, that was weird,” said Togusa. “Batou?” he radioed to his teammate. “I just found some weird old guys speaking like a fortune cookie. You find anything?” His answer was nothing but radio hiss and empty packets.

 

 

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Batou had seen a playground which his infrared and UV kept picking up afterimages as if someone with good reactive camouflage were running around loose. However, a total lack of footprints or EM signature pointed to that being more sensor noise rather than a genuine threat. Most of the noise was concentrated around a sandbox. He turned to regard the big house at the top of the low hill above the town, its long staircase marked as being built in 1896, a full century and a half earlier. The house itself could be older, and sensor noise made it hard to even look at. He wasn't sure exactly why, but it made him feel uneasy. He climbed the stairs, the tachikoma following behind him.

 

“Hinata Girls Dormitory and Hot Springs,” Batou read the sign out loud. “Huh. Looks like my nerves are my own imagination.” He stepped back, then rolled aside as a wash of wind rolled past him. The pavement was cracked. He looked to the source, seeing a woman with a sword standing there glowing. His eyes saw no EM signature per-se but she was glowing just the same.

 

“Intruder! What is your business at Hinata Sou in the middle of the night, dressed like a soldier and carrying guns?!” she yelled. She was a beautiful older woman, around fifty and gray haired but fierce and strong, dressed in traditional clothes from two centuries earlier. Batou tightened his grip on the assault rifle he carried, but noticed the heft felt wrong. The front half fell off the grip he held.

 

“Damn. That was one of my favorite ones,” he muttered. Tossing the rifle aside he snatched out his pistol and turned his attention to the woman, her long hair flowing despite the lack of a wind on the sheltered courtyard above the cherry trees. Batou gritted his resin-composite teeth and leaped, shooting as he went. She blocked it in another wave of light. The Tachikoma moved, firing at the woman who blasted it with light after a few jumps, knocking its legs and cannon out of action. Batou bounded down the stairs before getting caught by that glowing wind, blasting himself way out over the town before dropping to a rooftop, shaken.

 

“Togusa, Major! I'm under attack by some freak woman with a sword!” he reported. “One tachikoma is down.” He burst transmitted data from the attack to both of their cyberbrains. The woman yelled from the top of the stairs, pursuing him into the town.

 

 

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“Your namesake approaches. Please instruct your men to break off their attack. Repairs are expensive,” said the old woman.

 

“Your guard fired on my men first,” the Major pointed out. “And my robots aren't exactly cheap either.”

 

“He was trespassing and the guard is somewhat… protective of her charges. She's been doing it for thirty years, after all,” explained Haruka.

 

“Togusa, Batou, cease fire. Home in on my position. I found some information,” she radioed.

 

“Roger, Major,” replied Togusa.

 

“Affirmative, Major,” answered Batou grumpily. He was outside the tea house momentarily. The swordswoman arrived moments later, glaring at the cyborg she'd sent running with only her sword. He glared at the older woman, clearly a beauty in her time.

 

“Motoko, meet my neice, Shinobu's daughter Maehara Motoko,” explained Haruka. The elder Aoyama peered at the cyborg officer, then peered through her, eyes unfocussed.

 

“Interesting. It is as you say. Should we tell him she's here?” asked the Aoyama warrior.

 

“He's on the way with Hideki,” explained Seta.

 

“I am Aoyama Motoko. Your mother named you for me. I see it was not wasted, as you are a warrior yourself. You were involved with the laughing man case. I recognize you from the broadcast.”

 

“Major, what's going on here? Who are these people?” radioed Batou on his secure line.

 

“You say you knew my mother. Prove it,” insisted the Major. Togusa arrived, watching from outside. He and Batou radioed back and forth. Major Kusanagi ignored their banter, focussing on these people who claimed to be family.

 

“When we were children, young women, we all lived at the inn at the top of the hill over there. Shinobu was our resident cook, despite starting when she was only twelve. She was very determined, and very much in love with someone who didn't return her feelings the same way. Our housemates were mostly students, though some went on to fame later in their lives, including your father.”

 

“What do you mean? My father was never famous,” denied the Major. “I knew this was a waste of time.”

 

“The man who raised you was not your father. He was a good man to marry Shinobu despite her carrying another man's baby. It's so sad that they died in that plane crash. Don't you wonder why you survived and your parents didn't?”

 

“I try not to think about such things. My job makes that easy,” she stated. Silently admitting that her father's family did not share her DNA, something she learned years ago. A dive the tachikoma were running came up with her results: match. Most likely her genetic father was from this family after all. Curious anomalies were listed in their records. Ages in particular, such as the old lady behind the counter.

 

“Well, when you meet him, maybe you'll understand,” said Aoyama.

 

“Just how old are you?” asked Motoko Kusanagi of the old lady, who just grinned, pouring her another saucer of tea. Motoko sipped it, waiting.

 

“Just who are these people, Major,” asked Batou over the link.

 

“They seem to be family. I have a DNA match to their records.”

 

“Could it be cabinet disinformation?” asked Togusa. Paranoia was a requirement in Section Nine.

 

“Possibly, but I'm having the Tachikoma check the data integrity. They cracked a small local clinic with decades of records on the family, including old scans. So far the data checks out. We can verify things with DNA tests by our own lab if we need to,” radioed the Major silently.

 

The Major turned her head suddenly, looking down the slope towards the train station. The others looked that way as well. Some part of her could FEEL something coming. It wasn't her circuits or hardware, it was somewhere else in her still human brain. As time passed, she could feel two someones, one appearing beside Batou suddenly wearing a grey salaryman suit. The two of them eyed each other edgily.

 

“Father, she's here,” he gestured in the door. An old man stepped forward with dignity, tripped on the doorsill and tumbled the Aoyama warrior into a tangle of limbs with him, accidentally enough but with comic results, his face in her crotch and hers in his.

 

“Oh brother,” commented Batou. The man in the gray suit shook his head in despair.

 

“Oops. Sorry… sorry! Motoko forgive me,” he pleaded in a somewhat squeaky voice that didn't fit his age or bearing terribly well. The two untangled and stood, both blushing like teenagers.

 

“Keitaro, meet your daughter, Motoko,” Aoyama introduced them before drinking a cup of the house tea. Grandma Hina poured Keitaro a cup as well.

 

“Thanks grandma,” he said, swallowing quickly before turning to regard his progeny.

 

“So, you're Shinobu's girl. My girl. I've been looking for you. You've had a very busy life,” he admitted, looking her up and down. “I can't say I approve your fashion sense, but I imagine you're a modern woman.”

 

Motoko considered her high rise sleeveless body suit which accented her charms beyond taste, passing into a repugnant mockery of woman. She was a full body cyborg, after all. The needs of the flesh hardly applied to her and hadn't for most of her life. Her full breasts were another distraction on a combat machine.

 

“I really had a hell of a time finding you, ya know,” he said, scratching the back of his head with one hand. Something about that gesture triggered a deeply buried memory and she paused in her cynical self-perusal to examine this man claiming to be her father more closely.

 

“I'm glad you kept your hair the same,” he said finally, noticing her change in attention.

 

“Why didn't you marry my mother?” she asked finally. Keitaro sighed.

 

“There was a great deal of age difference, and I found myself in a complicated situation. You have a lot of half siblings of similar age,” he admitted. His son outside snorted, coming in from the cold, nodding to his half-sister.

 

“That's a very kind way to describe your harem days,” said the man. “I'm Hideki Urashima, by the way. I'm your half-brother. Motoko here is my mom. It's a miracle Dad is still alive after all the times she hit him over the years.”

 

“Yes, well, my temper mellowed. Naru's killed her, a heart attack twenty years ago.”

 

“That doesn't answer my question,” reminded Major Motoko.

 

“Yes, well I'm getting around to that. For the first few years of my courtship of Naru, she would not submit to me… and I found myself impatient. Things got out of hand, things were said and I found myself dating the dorm, so to speak. It sounds worse than it was.”

 

“It was worse that it sounds,” corrected Haruka. Motoko Aoyama nodded agreement.

 

“Anyway, when Shinobu forced herself on me... She'd had a crush on me since she was a girl and well, she seduced me. I wasn't unwilling, though I felt very guilty about it during and after our affair. Naturally, she became pregnant and opted to keep the child. He was your older brother, named for me. Turns out that was a popular choice at the time. It seems that Urashima's are extraordinarily fertile. Years passed and I met your mom and your brother and things happened while the others were around. We wound up together at an opportune moment and I suppose if I had… well that's water under the bridge. Shinobu was a very determined woman. She always got what she wanted.”

 

“So you say its all her fault? That's hardly honorable of you,” snorted Motoko, amused.

 

“You don't understand. You may think your memories of her as a sweet and loving Mom were just that, the memories of a child. You have to understand that I, all of us, knew her through her childhood and some of her adult years. She was the sweetest and gentlest soul we ever knew. Shinobu was a genuinely kind and good person. When she begged, I couldn't say no. I've denied her far too much over my youth and she was always so good to everyone around her… I'm sorry,” he finally said. Motoko found herself crying, surprised that she still could.

 

“You give me this and then take it away, telling me my mother was both an adultress and a woman of gentle nature. And I kill people. Where does this leave me?” she asked.

 

“You're not alone anymore, Motoko. We are your family,” said Keitaro, stepping forward to embrace his daughter's robotic body. She froze at the unwanted contact, resisting the urge to fling him away, to push away the man who claimed to be her father.

 

“And I have a job to do,” she finally announced. “I will contact you… later. How may I reach you?” she asked. They gave her contact info, including direct ID's, inferring a great deal of trust on her. She was still suspicious but they offered to allow genetic testing at her preferred location to satisfy her fully.

 

 

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Weeks later, Motoko Kusanagi saw the report on her family genetics. It was a match, in spite of expectation otherwise. How… odd, she admitted to herself. She'd accessed her long stored external memory, finding data relating to her mother, and her family from her first cyberbrain recordings. Things she'd long forgotten she'd ever known. There were memories of the Hinata District as well.

 

“Chief, things are slow. I'm going to take a walk. Call me if you need anything,” she radioed to her team. Grunts and monosyllables greeted her.

 

“That's what I get for working with only men,” she admitted to herself, heading for the subway, referencing the map for that particular station. She wondered if the tea would be as good today.

 

 

End Chapter 1