"Sukete, mieteru wakare de, moe nagara; tsugi no meguriai mo, mata 
anata ga ii to! Ai wa fukaku naru hodo, yokubari de, toiki sae shibaritai,
rifujin, soredemo!"

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

                              Tuxedo Jack
                                 ~and~
                 Craptacularly Spignificant Productions
                               ~present~

                          The Kyoto Liddo-Kun
                           Chapter the Fifth

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

See the prologue for a disclaimer.

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Life had gone to hell in a handbasket.

It wasn't really a surprise, though; I was used to it. First my
oniisan left the house when I was young thanks to our parents' - my
adoptive parents - abuse, and I don't see him for years. Come to
think of it, I still haven't seen him.

After that, I go through college, get my PI license, and end up in a
hellhole of an office with very little business - just enough to scrape
by and pay my secretary with. Oh, and then she quits, leaving me with an
admittedly _extremely_ competent and stunning temp...

And then _she_ walks in.

Her boyfriend's gone, and she hires me to find him. Turns out he's dead.
What a surprise. She cries on my shoulder for a while, then we go to stake
out a bar, and she ends up slipping me tongue.

Did I mention that she's drop-dead gorgeous, and I can't touch her since
she's probably not interested in me?

Yeah, life's a bitch.

The name's Kanako Urashima, but if you've read the other chapters of this
story, you know that already.

After Seta left the bar, we - Shinobu, Naru, and I - waited a while, and
had a few nonalcoholic drinks to counteract the alcohol we'd had while we
waited. We knew that the keiretsu were going to follow him, and if they knew
that we'd been meeting with him... well, suffice it to say, we'd be joining
Keitaro in the afterlife.

At eleven-thirty or so, we headed out. Shinobu left the bar first, followed
by myself, and Naru followed me, her hand in mine to make it look as if we
were lovers.

Purely as distraction for the men who we _knew_ were out there, of course.
If they caught us... oh, man, we'd be screwed.

We kept moving, boarding the trolley, and then riding back to my house.
Naru was nearly asleep, so I held her on my shoulders, and Shinobu unlocked my
door for me. We moved into my apartment, Naru on my back, and...

"You took your time, didn't you?"

A woman's voice came out of the shadows where I knew my good leather chair
to be. She snapped her fingers, and the lights came on, revealing two men
by the door and herself in the good chair.

Damn it to hell, I knew her.

She had long brown hair in a ponytail, a perpetual smile, and a watermelon
embroidered on her jacket. This woman also didn't pull punches. When she
saw something she wanted, she got it, by whatever means necessary.

My look of surprise was exactly what she'd expected. "Ara ara, Urashima-san,
didn't you think that I'd come after what's mine?"

"It's not like I didn't expect you to," I whispered. "Mutsumi-san, you shouldn't
have come here."

"Why not?" she said, smiling. "You have something I want, and I intend to get it
back from you."

Shinobu wrapped her arms around me, trying to hold on to one anchor in the wash - and
Mutsumi snapped her fingers, and her two men grabbed Naru and pulled her to the 
door. They slipped out, and Shinobu started shaking as she pressed up against me in
fear.

"Until you find that disk, Kanako, your little girlfriend's going to stay with me."
Mutsumi said, rising from her seat and walking to the door. "You'd best hurry, as
my patience wears thin quickly. You have my number at NEC."

She left, and Shinobu stood next to me, her arms around my waist, head on my shoulder,
and shaking like a leaf. I just burned with fury, wishing that I'd had a semiautomatic
to take out Mutsumi and her men.

"Damn it," I cursed, bringing my fist down _hard_ onto the armrest of my good chair.
"Of all the things that bitch could have done..."

"Kanako-san, just go after her," Shinobu said quietly, letting go of me
and going to the chair.

I shook my head. "She's gone by now. She's got a car outside, and I don't,
so I can't follow her. I know where she's going to end up, though."

"Where?"

"NEC headquarters," I muttered, thinking carefully. "Right down the street
from Todai, come to think of it. I'd go rescue Naru if I could, but I think
a trade might be better here."

"How come?"

I smiled dryly. "I can't exactly burst in and pull a Spike Spiegel on the
guards a la episode twenty-six, can I?"

Shinobu placed her chin on her arm and frowned. "I guess you can't. How
are you going to get the disk, though? Seta said he gave it to Keitaro,
and if Keitaro didn't have it when the NEC keiretsu people killed him,
where is it?"

I shrugged. "That I don't know. There are a few people I can talk to,
and with any luck, I'll get a hint."

She left a little later, and went home to sleep after I gave her the next
day off. I went to bed myself a little while later, and as I lay there
in the darkness, thoughts ran through my head.

_Mutsumi wanted Naru._

_She called her my "little girlfriend."_

_Naru didn't protest that._

_How come she didn't? Could she have been in shock, or too tired to
resist?_

_Or maybe, just maybe..._

I groaned, rolled over, and went to sleep.

The next morning, it was raining. I almost didn't want to get out of bed
thanks to it - well, that and the fact that I'd have to go out into it
to complete my assignments for the day. I did eventually get up, however,
and I dressed in black pants and a red sweater, slipping my trenchcoat
over it all before I walked outside into a cool wind.

Despite its reputation as an on-time service, the trolley ran late that day,
as I rode it to the monorail station, I had time to formulate a plan to
deal with the women I'd have to see today.

One was fairly high up at METI, and she knew all kinds of tricks - stuff
that I couldn't begin to comprehend even if she implanted the knowledge of
them straight into my mind. The other... well, Haruka was going to be a
problem. She'd blown me off once before, and despite her sending Haitani to
me the previous night, I thought that I'd have to take her at face value
for once.

If she truly meant that she'd wanted to find the disk, and she wanted it bad,
she was as dangerous to me as the keiretsu.

I was being pulled in three directions, and all of them were equally dangerous - 
two to my body, one to my heart.

Eventually, the trolley reached the station, and I departed it, walked to the
ticket machine, and slipped in ten thousand yen for an open round-trip ticket
to Tokyo. If this problem was going to be fixed, it was there. It would be about
an hour until my train left, so I figured that I'd get a quick meal.

On my short walk to a nearby beef bowl stand, something seemed off. I
checked my pockets - I wasn't missing anything, and the small items that
I'd brought to help me out in case I was attacked were still there. It
just felt like something was... unusual.

A few minutes later, when someone's hand clamped down on my shoulder,
I knew just what was bothering me.

I was being followed.

The hand turned me around, and I ended up facing two men in suits. One
reached into his jacket, and I had barely a second to react before he
pulled out a small syringe. He drove it forwards, barely missing my arm, 
and I screamed "RAPE!" and kicked him hard in the crotch before flinging 
myself aside and attacking the other guy.

His fist came towards me, but the crowds around the beef bowl counter closed in
and pulled him away, waiting for a policeman to arrive to take the two into
custody. In the meantime, I slipped through the crowds, and got onto the train
leaving for Tokyo.

I locked the door to my compartment and pulled out my cellular phone, intending
to make a quick call to Shinobu, but it rang before I could dial. Frowning, I
answered it, and the bright voice of the woman I'd intended to meet came across
clear as day, thanks to the illegal equipment she used to boost her signals.

"Kanako-san! Heyas! How's things?"

I shrugged, but inwardly I quailed. That girl scared the hell out of me, and
for good reaason. She was an obscure technogeek at METI, but she had access to
some of the world's most advanced gear.

"Not good, Su-chan. I'm on my way to Tokyo to see you, as a matter of fact."

"Oh, Su-chan already knows that, Kanako-san," Su said over the phone in a very
calm, controlled (for her, anyway) manner. "Su-chan tracked your cellular signal!
So what are you coming here for?"

"I need you to write something for me, Su-chan," I muttered into the phone.
"I want you to write me a trojan, one that can tell me if someone's got a certain
document open, and one that can't be detected by antivirus software."

"Oh, that's easy," she said. "Su-chan can do that in a few thousand lines
of code!"

"Good," I muttered. "How about we meet for lunch somewhere? I don't want anyone
to bug this conversation or anything."

"Wai! Su-chan knows a good curry restaurant near the METI building! Meet Su-chan
there, Kanako-san!" She disconnected, and I shut my phone after shaking my head.
That girl scared me.

A few hours later, I stepped off the monorail to the sights and sounds of Tokyo.
It wasn't hard to catch a subway train from there, and eventually, I exited the
cramped (albeit speedy) subway at Toranomon Station. After a quick walk to the
east, passing a police box along the way, I saw the tanned form of Su running
down the street, and I waved at her.

"Oy, Su-chan! Over here!"

She turned, and in the second it took her to see me, things went from bad to worse.
A car screeched to a stop, and with a start, I recognized the two men getting out
of it - the two back from the Hinata train station.

They didn't look too happy.

"Oh, _shit_," I muttered, and turned - only to see the two from Naru's apartment.
This wasn't good. They were searching for someone, and I'd have laid good odds that
it was me. Fortunately, before they got to me, I stepped on a manhole, and the thing 
opened under me. I let out a yelp, mostly out of surprise, half of shock, as I fell 
and slid down some weird kind of slide, ending up in a sterile laboratory - or what
would have passed for sterile were it not for all the banana peels covering the
floor.

"Wai! Kanako-san found my secret laboratory!" Su said from her chair before
leaping up and bounding over to glomp me.

I failed to dodge her, as she seemed to have a homing sense in her or 
something. She glomped me, rather hard, and I pried her off. "Hello, 
Su-chan. How've things been going?"

"Oh, good, good," Su said offhandedly as she passed me a disk. "I've 
been programming!" She grinned. "You mentioned you wanted something special, 
right?" I nodded, and she continued. "This program here'll search for 
any file on any computer in the world matching certain data and it'll 
relay it to my station!"

"But how is it going to get past firewalls and such, Su-chan?"

"Oh, that's easy," she said with a shrug. "It's going to tack the 
information in on an encrypted packet that'll go to the user's site, 
and from there, they'll be relayed to me."

I shook my head. I didn't even _want_ to know. "And how are you going to 
get it on the computers?"

Su smirked. "I'm calling it a critical update for Windows XP."

"Makes sense." 

Su went over to her workstation, typed in a few commands, and leaned 
back in her chair. "That's it! The program's on the Internet, and within 
a few hours, people'll start downloading it." She blinked, then sat upright. 
"Oh, damn."

"What?"

"Someone had a tracer on my equipment!" She started jabbing at her 
keyboard, and she turned to me, her face pale. "Get out of here. They're 
coming." I hesitated, and then she screamed. "GO!"

Something shot up from under me, and I was catapulted violently up a 
few dozen feet into the street, where I somehow managed to land on my 
feet. I started running - I didn't care to where, just so long as it was 
away from Su's lab. A few minutes later, a loud blast came from where I'd 
been, and I turned around to see a huge cloud of smoke coming from 
what once was Su's lab.

Now it didn't make sense. Was Mutsumi trying to have me killed? Maybe. She'd 
make me give her the disk, then she'd kill me, and she'd kill Naru to boot just
to keep this secret.

So who was it who set off the blast? Su herself? Despite her abysmal 
track record at keeping machines running, I seriously doubt she'd destroy 
her own laboratory... unless that was her particular method of spring 
cleaning, in which case I'd give it an excellent chance.

A thought ran through my mind, and I stopped short.

Haruka?

Could she have tried to do me in?

All she needed was to talk to Su and get the data from her instead of 
me, and she'd take care of two problems with one stone. She didn't want 
to screw with the zaibatsu, so she'd get the disk, get the files, and 
waste me so she could lord it over Mitsubishi, and possibly even get 
control of the company.

I wouldn't put it past her...

No. Haruka was definitely not a threat at the moment.

When the time came, I'd deal with her, and only then. As for now, I had to get
out of there, and do it fast. I continued running until I couldn't run anymore -
literally. I was panting, breathing like a racehorse, and it wouldn't have been
hard to shoot me down there. No bullet came, though, and it sounded like I was
in the clear for the moment. For some reason, though, I was _hungry_. I guess
near-death escapades will do that.

I walked down the street, and for some reason, a desire for udon struck me. It
wasn't too hard to find a stool at a nearby noodle stand, and as I sat down, a
soft, feminine hand clamped down on my shoulders.

"Ara ara, I see you've been busy," the owner of the hand said over my shoulder.
I winced and turned. Sure enough, Mutsumi stood there, no bodyguards in sight.
With a sigh, I turned back to my udon.

"Where's Naru?"

"One bowl of your udon, please!" she said with a wide grin to the cook, and as
he started preparing the noodles, she turned to me with a smirk. "Where's my disk?"

"I'd have it already if your mooks hadn't blown up my contact's laboratory."

Mutsumi's eyes went wide. "That explosion earlier?"

I snorted. "What, you think that I don't know that was your men? It's not hard to
see that you want me dead, Mutsumi."

She let out a little gasp as the bowl of noodles was placed in front of her, and
after sucking down a few, she sighed happily. "Ara ara, they're almost orgasmic.
That's why I always come here - this chef is a master." She turned back to me.
"And he's discreet, so we'll cut the crap, Kanako. You've got forty-eight hours
to get the disk back to me, or I kill Naru in front of you." She nibbled on two
more noodles, and then continued with a wide grin on her face. "And you'd better
get it back to me."

Mutsumi snapped her fingers, and out of nowhere, two men in suits 
brought Naru forward. I started when I saw who they were - they were 
the ones from Naru's apartment!

"Did your goons have a fun time going through Naru's undergarments, Mutsumi?"
I said, daggers of ice in my voice. 

She narrowed her eyes and turned to the one who I'd kicked in the testicles.
"Hikaru, I see you've been indulging in your tastes on the job again."

The man's eyes widened, then he bowed. "Yes, Otohime-sama. However, we were
also searching her drawers for the object."

"Then it is excused, on one condition," Mutsumi said as she turned back to her
noodles.

"The condition, Otohime-sama?" Hikaru said.

"The girl will slap you."

With that, Naru wound up and slugged Hikaru. He flew a good distance - about
as far as one of my "special" punches would have flung him - and the other man,
Daisuke, if memory served - moved in to subdue Naru, but she broke free and ran
to me.

She latched on to me, wrapping her arms around my neck, and I started. "Naru-chan!"

"Let's get out of here," she whispered.

"Agreed," I muttered, looking at Mutsumi, still slurping her noodles, and
Daisuke, who was trying to wake Hikaru up.

I grabbed her hand, and we ran.

Mutsumi stood up behind us and sighed. "Ara ara, that's not nice." She
flipped open her cellphone and issued orders to her mooks as we ran, and then
sat back down and continued eating.

Suffice it to say, we weren't going to get far.

After a few blocks, Naru was panting, and her stamina was spent, so we slipped
into a nearby building. It was only when she started blushing and squirming her hand
inside mine, when I realized what building we'd ducked into.

A love hotel.

Goddammit, it had to be that. Of all the damn buildings in Tokyo, it _HAD_ to be
a love hotel.

Naru murmured something to me, but I shook my head. "No time. We've got to hide."
With just a hint of a blush, I grabbed a key from the dispenser and slipped into 
an elevator, pulling Naru behind me. She wasn't worried, though. If anything, she was
blushing a little more than I was.

When the doors opened, we stepped out, and I looked through the corridor to see if
anyone was there. With a quick glance, I saw no one, and so we ran down the hall to 
the room. The card key unlocked the door; I shoved Naru in, ran in, and slammed the 
door behind us.

I sighed. "We're probably going to be stuck here a while, Naru-chan. I suggest
you take a shower and clean up. I'll stand guard."

"Kanako-chan," Neu said. I turned around to her - I'd been facing the door and
checking the small item in the secret pocket of my coat. Yeah, even I have a secret
pocket or two. I'm no Minnie May Hopkins, though - I used to only carry a knife, but
thanks to this episode, I've had to upgrade a bit. Su's stuff... that did the trick.

"Kanako-chan, what are we going to do?" Naru whispered, tears flowing down her
face. "Mutsumi's after me, and Keitaro's... and you're..."

I sighed, turned to Naru, and cupped her chin in my hands, then used my thumbs
to wipe away the tears on her cheeks. "Naru-chan, kimo no koto wa itsudemo
mamoru."

Her eyes went wide, and she gasped. Through her tears, she smiled, and
with a soft sob, she spoke haltingly. "Yakusoku yo?"

"Yakusoku desu," was all I had time to say before she covered my mouth
with her lips.

Gods, it was sweeter than the first time; true passion behind it, delicious
tenderness, restrained passion, dark lust, bright love, happiness, that
damnably comfortable ache that comes from being separated from your koibito,
completion...

It was all that and more.

We stayed that way, in that sweet embrace, that oblivion of bliss, for
what seemed all eternity - but in reality, it was for a mere few minutes,
and when I awoke from the lethe of sensation, my hands were on the zipper
of Naru's dress, hers were on my rear, and my mouth ended up on her neck
while she was gasping for breath.

"Matte," I muttered, pulling back. "Chotto matte, Naru-chan..."

And just then, a soft click sounded from the door, and Mutsumi stepped
in, pistol in hand.

"Ara ara, am I interrupting something?"

I hissed in anger. "You!"

"That's right," Mutsumi said, her eyes smirking, her hand twitching.
"If you give me my disk, you can have your Naru. Do I have my disk?
No. Therefore you cannot have your Naru."

Naru clenched onto me, and I started to reach into my coat to
draw out the item I had inside... but... but...

Mutsumi aimed her pistol towards my midsection. "A gut shot is a miserable
way to die, Kanako-san. Are you sure you want that? Just come quietly, Naru,
and nothing will happen to your precious Kanako."

Naru looked towards me, and nodded quietly. She moved towards Mutsumi, and
I thought for a second that she was going to punch her senseless.

"Don't even try it, Naru-san," Mutsumi said quietly. "I have no qualms
about shooting you dead where you stand, and neither does Daisuke."

Daisuke and Hikaru stepped in from the corridor, and each took one
of Naru's arms before hauling her out of the room.

"That forty-eight hours I gave you earlier is gone, Kanako," Mutsumi
said with daggers of ice in her voice. "It's now twenty-four hours."

"Goddammit, Mutsumi, we don't have anything to do with your damn problems!"

"To the contrary, Kanako-san," she said, turning and leaving after
stowing her pistol inside her jacket. "They're now _your_ problems.
Sayonara, and I'll tell Naru 'ai wa kowareru' for you, ne?"

"KANAKO!" Naru's scream came from the hallway.

"NARU!" I leapt up and dashed after them, but Mutsumi shut the door in my
face, and I slid down it, pounding my fist on it in vain, tears cascading
down my cheeks.

"Kimi no koto wa... itsudemo mamoru..."

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

AUTHOR'S NOTES

I am now officially disturbed, and not just by Mutsumi as a villainess.

Four words: "Sephiroth Choir as chibis."

Cecilia, I do congratulate you on completing another set of chapters of
"Yuki's Diary." What was once a small diary focused on one person and her lover
became a slow opening to the dark underbelly of a shoujo-mugen.

Finally, I've started teaching. It's really a joy, and I've gotten better pay, 
better hours, and a sense of job fulfillment. That, and I get to teach kids how 
to create worlds (since I'm teaching Computer Science and a great part of my 
weekly curriculum is one day a week playing Age of Empires, Civilization, or 
SimCity 2000).

Anyways, there's two more parts to this left. They're mapped out already, so 
they shouldn't be any trouble for me to write. There are two endings that I've
planned for this, but I intend to write only one, and the other one will remain
a secret for all eternity... unless someone wheedles it out of me on IM.

And in case you didn't know, the title of this chapter, as well as the
lines of dialogue, translate to "I will always protect you." Thanks to
Orla and Jaelle for giving me the translation.

Ja!

Tuxedo Jack
October 19th, 2003
2:29 A.M., Central Time

Anime in my DVD player at the moment: Weiss Kreuz
Next up in the queue: Mahou Tsukai Tai
Background music: "Requiem for the Gods" from "Castlevania: Gekka no Yasoukyoku"