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Tug-of-War	By : thewriterwhocameinfromthecold Category: +G to L > Love Hina Views: 57788 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 6
Disclaimer: I do not own Love Hina or it's associated characters. I am not profiting off this work in any way.

Chapter List
- 28
- 29
Kitsune fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow. Or at least that was what she assumed. Dreaming was the only way to explain the bizzare sounds from across the hall. First there was Keitaro screaming like a soprano, then there was a loud series of crashes, and then more screaming. Shaking her head, Kitsune sat up and reached for her bedside lamp. As she flipped on the light, she could hear something from outside her window. She turned and screamed. There was Keitaro pressed up against the glass, his eyes wild with panic.
Kitsune took a deep breath and willed her heart to stop pounding as she opened the window. “What the hell are you doing out…?”
“Hide me!” Keitaro begged, springing into the room.
“Hide you? What are you talking about? And for God’s sake, will you let go of my legs?”
“Uh uh!” Keitaro clutched at her, determined to make the most of his new hiding spot. “She’s gone crazy! I mean it! Somebody must have put a porno flick in her Kurosawa collection, because she has finally lost her mind!”
“Who?” Kitsune demanded, trying to wriggle free without tripping.
“Keitaro Urashima! You get back here and make a woman of me this instant!”
Now Kitsune did trip. And laugh. Down she went in a hail of side splitting guffaws, tears rolling down her cheeks. All she could do was lie there, paralysed by laughter, as the equilibrium that held her world together went up like a piece of flash paper. The whole world was coming to an insane end; that was the only explanation. Second Impact was about to occur: rivers of blood, skies black as sack cloth, the Bee Gees going on tour. Nothing less could explain Motoko half wearing a man’s shirt, while Keitaro tried to dig a tunnel to China.
Motoko looked as ferocious as ever. Gone was the refined and emotionally detached hunter, and in her place was a frenzied predator. She had tasted blood and nothing would keep her from its source. As she laid eyes on Kitsune, there was a strange battle being fought across her face as the she-beast tried to reassume her mask. A parody of serenity settled across her face, even as the frenzy still radiated from her eyes. She smiled.
“Kitsune, would you kindly move out of the way?”
“What in the hell is going on?” Kitsune demanded, taking deep breaths to quell her laughter.
Even smiling and without her sword, Motoko looked lethal. “I have business with Urashima. Please do not interfere.”
Kitsune got a chill down her spine, but she looked down at Keitaro who shook his head, begging her with his eyes. “I don’t know if I should. Kei doesn’t seem to be in an alone time mood.”
Motoko shook her head and turned her smile up to ‘Pan Am’. “We have had a misunderstanding. I intend to” – the tip of her tongue caressed the corner of her mouth – “correct it.”
Kitsune’s jaw tensed. She stood up, squaring her shoulders. “Well, I won’t just let you take him,” she said, glaring.
Motoko’s smile didn’t waver as she shook her head. “Kitsune, this is a mistake.”
The Fox crossed her arms. “You bet your ass it is. You are not touching him, understand?”
Motoko sighed. “I was hoping it would not come to this.” She moved so fast that the movement almost seemed invisible as she reached out to grab and squeeze the soft flesh between Kitsune’s thumb and forefinger. Kitsune yelped as a sharp pain shot up her arm. Then Motoko pulled her to the side and away she went, the pain giving her no option but to follow. “I am assuming that this demonstration will suffice,” Motoko said, turning back to look at Keitaro. Once he was in her sights, she licked her lips again.
Keitaro shuffled against the floor until his back hit the wall. “Listen, Motoko, I don’t know what’s going on, but you’re not thinking straight.”
The huntress gave a dark chuckle as she stalked closer. “Oh, I’ve never thought clearer. It is refreshing.”
Keitaro felt his throat run dry. No woman had ever looked at him this way. Over the last seven months, Kitsune and and Naru had looked at him with lust, hunger, affection, and even, he wanted to say, love; but never had any woman looked at him, as Motoko now was: as if not only did she intend to possess him mind, body, and soul, but that she did so as a matter of natural entitlement – like a queen attaining her divine right.
“This is insane,” he said in a warbling voice. “You don’t even like me. Remember?”
“What the hell is going on here?” Naru demanded from the doorway, Shinobu and Su peaking out from behind her.
Motoko turned, distracted, and Kitsune seized her opportunity, grabbing Motoko by the ankles. “Keitaro, run!”
Keitaro did just that. Months of getting chased by Motoko had given him a good memory of the building’s escape routes. So, he leapt through Kitsune’s window, reached out to grab the drain pipe beside the window, and slid down to the ground.
Motoko glowered down at the Fox. “You will not stop me,” she said, kicking herself free before leaping out the window herself.
“What did Keitaro do now?” Naru asked.
“Motoko won’t hurt him, will she?” Shinobu asked, worrying at the hem of her nightshirt.
“All around the mulberry bush,” Su sang, “Motoko chased Keitaro.” She cackled and leapt onto the window sill to look out. “I can’t see them. Luckily, I have my nightvision goggles and my Keitaro Tracker back in my room.” She climbed down and prepared to take off, but Kitsune caught her.
“I think we might want to leave her alone on this one, Su.”
“But that’s no fun,” the resident lunatic pouted.
Kitsune leaned down to whisper, promising a dozen bananas.
Su wiped the drool from her chin. “I suppose once you’ve seen one Motoko Keitaro chase, you’ve seen them all,” she said with a practiced shrug.
“But” – Kitsune tried pressing her luck – “just in case, Naru and I could make sure she doesn’t hurt him too badly” – Shinobu whimpered – “and if you gave us the nightvision and the tracker, we could do that.”
Su made a thoughtful noise. “Double the bananas?” she asked.
“Triple, if you go and get the stuff right now.”
Su bounded out of the room with a joyful squeal.
Shinobu clung to Naru’s nightgown. “Keitaro will be all right, won’t he? Motoko won’t hurt him too badly.”
Kitsune patted Shinobu on the head. “Trust me sweetie.” Her tone was light as she looked away to make sure the girl couldn’t see her scowl. “I doubt that’s what she has in mind.”
“You’re serious?” Naru asked, adjusting the strap of her goggles. “I mean this is Motoko we’re talking about.”
“How the hell do you operate this thing, Su?” Kitsune muttered, punching buttons on the Keitaro tracker. “You didn’t see the look in her eyes,” she told her friend. “It was like he was a piece of steak. She was practically drooling.”
The machine let out a cheerful ‘Ding!’ and a blip appeared on the main screen.
“Looks like he’s headed for the back of the property, toward the old shrine.”
The two jogged out into the night. Naru cast a wary eye at her friend. Kitsune rarely got worked up over things, but she was almost gnashing her teeth as they traversed the grounds.
“You’re not worried, are you?” Naru asked, growing uncomfortable with the furious silence.
“Worried, hell! I’m pissed!” Kitsune clenched her fists. “Kei-baby’s ours: yours and mine. After all that righteous talk about feminine sanctuary and lecherous males, she doesn’t get to swoop in and take him just because she’s discovered she has a vagina.”
A short distance away, Motoko was stalking her prey. It wasn’t easy in the dark, but he made so much noise as he ran that it was simply a matter of patient listening for panting breath or the occasional snapped branch. Having not left the property, she knew there were only a few places he could reasonably hide. And, unless she very much missed her guess, their current course was taking them on meandering journey towards the old shrine where she would occasionally meditate. Deciding to risk it, she leapt up and bounded over the treetops toward the shrine. The moon was bright and she prayed that the gods and goddesses saw her clearly in its light as she continued her hunt. The trees came to an abrupt end at the clearing around the shrine and she jumped down to land at the shrine steps, silent as a cat.
She climbed the steps and lit a stick of incense. “Gods watch over me as I complete this holy task,” she prayed and sat down to wait.
Her patience soon paid off as the trees filled with the rustling announcing the arrival of her prey. She hid in the doorway and waited for him to emerge dishevelled, with broken branches in his hair. Panting and bent at the waist, he stumbled towards the shrine and looked for a place to hide. Trying to catch his breath, he noticed the smell in the air. He straightened up, his eyes darting from side to side as he approached the shrine to see the stick burning in the incenseholder.
“Oh shit.” His shoulders sagged.
“Language, Urashima,” Motoko said behind him. “This is a holy place.”
He moaned in anticipation of his fate, too tired to run anymore.
She smiled. “Do not be so fearful, Urashima.” She held out her arms and spun around. Let him get a good look. “I am neither armed, nor am I angry.”
“What is going on?” he asked, running his hands through his hair. “You hardly even talk to me unless it’s to scare me. We hardly spend time together unless you can’t avoid it.”
In response she shook her hair in what seemed like a rather unnecessary flourish. “I do not blame you for thinking such things,” she said, coming closer. “I have done very little to encourage your good opinion.” He said nothing and she continued on a track he hadn’t seen coming. “Tell me, do you believe in the soul, Urashima? Do you believe that two souls can be mated?”
Keitaro blinked, but thought about his age old promise to Mutsumi and Naru; about how wonderful he felt whenever Naru or Kitsune were in the room; about their looks of dizzy adoration when they were in bed; and about the ineffable, inescapable feeling of rightness he had whenever he sat between them on the couch or at the table, their hands in his.
“Yes,” he said, at last. “I do.”
If anything, Motoko seemed to glow at this response, only to school her expression and beat the joy down to a shy smile.
“There is a curse on my family,” she said. “Almost as old as the family line itself.”
“I don’t understand.”
She shook her head. “My family are renowned exorcists. Many centuries ago, the legend goes that the head woman of the family was sent on a hunt for a kitsune, a trickster.” She watched to see that he was still following. “Yes,” she said, marking his confusion, “kitsune are real. Many magical things could be seen in this world, if we had but the faith and insight to look. At any rate, when my ancestor – Fumiko is her name – when Fumiko found this kitsune, she realised that many of the rumours about her were untrue. The spirit was a trickster, but had no desire to hurt anyone.” She sat down on the steps. Keitaro tried not to look at the white gleaming flesh of her legs as she played with the tails of his shirt. “So, Fumiko befriended this spirit who disguised herself as a human, and they became inseparable.
“In time, they came to know each other better than they knew themselves.” She sighed, and her smile lost its light. “The spirit came to know that, despite being respected and powerful, Fumiko was also lonely. So, she revealed herself as a matchmaker of great renown and promised to use all her powers to find Fumiko a suitable husband. And she found him. According to the legend, his name was Kenshin. He was a high ranking samurai in the Emperor’s service. By the spirit’s machinations, Fumiko and Kenshin met and fell in love.”
“What went wrong?” Keitaro asked, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“There was another noblewoman who loved Kenshin,” Motoko continued. “She was also a powerful sorceress. She cursed Fumiko, increased her” – she stumbled over the next words – “her sexual appetite until it was beyond bearing. She had wanted to humiliate Fumiko, to turn her into a wanton so disgusting that Kenshin would leave her, and Fumiko would remain a creature of lust until she died. Luckily, the kitsune sensed something amiss and quarantined Fumiko at a distant shrine, hoping to break the curse. But the noblewoman followed them and struck. The kitsune tried to fight her off, but the legend says that the woman fatally wounded the spirit with a magical dagger.” Motoko raised a clenched fist and her voice rang with conviction. “Seeing her friend on the ground, dying, spurred Fumiko to rise from her sick bed and take up her sword. She slew the woman with one swing of her katana.”
“What happened to the spirit? Did she die?”
Motoko shook her head. “Fumiko offered herself as a way to save her friend and, with the last of her magic, the spirit bound herself to Fumiko. Their souls were joined and they became one person in a single body.”
Keitaro smiled, still not entirely believing. “That’s very romantic.”
Motoko sighed. “Romantic yes, but it turned out to be exactly the wrong thing to do. When we create a life – when we have children – a portion of us lives on. Not just in terms of DNA, but of the soul as well. We all share a portion of the spirit of the person who birthed us. With the kitsune’s magic now a part of her, Fumiko was able to keep the curse at bay and she married Kenshin. But when she had her first child, a daughter named Reika, it became apparent that the kitsune’s magic carried through the bloodline.”
Keitaro blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“When Fumiko and the spirit became one, the curse became as much a part of the spirit as it was a part of Fumiko, and despite all their attempts to cure it, neither the mind of a human nor that of a kitsune could undo it. So, the curse became a part of the spirit and she became a part of Fumiko’s spirit. So, when Fumiko gave birth to Reika, Reika was imbued with that spirit. And since kitsune are immortal, the curse came with her, unimpeded.”
“Oh.” A few seconds went by and it clicked in his mind. “Oh!”
She nodded. “Yes, I am possessed by the same spirit and the same curse. Since the moment of that curse, Aoyama women have only been able to give birth to daughters and all daughters have borne the curse which is only amplified by the power of the kitsune which courses through us. This is why all men who marry into the family take our name, so that we never lose track of one another.” Her voice broke and he realised that she was crying, her tears invisible to him in the dark. “Forgive me, Urashima. For all of my fine words about honour and chastity, I am no different than any of them. I have been so cruel to you, calling you a lecher, when all this time it was an excuse.”
“An excuse?” he asked, daring to come closer for the first time.
She wiped at her tears in the dark. “Yes. I came to this woman only sanctuary because I thought I could avoid the curse’s effects. If there were no men around, I was sure I would be safe. But the moment you arrived, the symptoms began and my body called out for you. At least I thought it was my body.” She leaned in from her position on the steps and clutched at his pant leg. “You understand, don’t you?” She gazed up at him. “I was so frightened. Not all women have been able to deal with this curse. The lust has driven many of them mad, turned them to succubi who hunt for men and use their bodies until one or both of them expire.” Her voice rose, becoming thick with tears. “You have to understand, I feared for my very sanity and I was so cruel to you. Forgive me.” She hugged his legs. “Forgive me.”
She started at the feel of his hand on her head. She gazed up at him.
“You poor thing,” he said.
Her face crumpled. “Don’t be so nice to me. I don’t deserve it.”
“Even if that were true,” he said, kneeling down, “I would forgive you anyway.”
She sobbed aloud and he held her. For the first time since they had met, he had no fear of her at all. She was just a frightened girl. Perhaps, that was all she had ever been.
“What can I do?” he asked when she had calmed down.
His heart tore as she gazed up with him with such damned vulnerability. “Would you truly help me?”
“Of course.” He forced himself to keep looking at her eyes, even though it pained him to see her so fragile.
“The only thing that can keep the curse at bay for any one woman is love. Fumiko, possessed with the wit of the kitsune, left a scroll with her descendents, explaining everything she had discovered about the curse. In short, love is the only magic powerful enough in this universe. Each of us must find our soulmate and he must complete a ritual with us to subdue the kitsune’s power and keep the curse from overwhelming us.”
“What? And you think it’s me?” he asked, squeaking.
She gave him a watery smile. “I grow surer of it with each passing moment. At first I thought you were a threat, and then when I realised you could be kept at bay, I thought little of you.” She cast him an apologetic glance. “I was so certain that my true love lay elsewhere that I never looked at you. Until I began to see who you truly were: kind, loyal, even brave when forced.” She touched his hand. “And my heart began to stir around you, but I dismissed it. I thought it no more than a symptom of the disease, and I was certain you would never be able to complete the ritual.”
“What is the ritual?”
“No man has been able to speak of it once they emerge from the trance. It appears to be an effect of the magic. But Fumiko left directions in the scroll. She wrote that a man could only attempt the ritual once they had gained submission of the woman they desired.” She gave him a wry smile. “You see why I did not consider you a candidate.”
Despite himself, Keitaro chuckled. “I’m not much use in a fight, am I?”
“And so I thought,” Motoko replied, holding up a finger. “I thought, as most if not all in our family have, that the ritual required a man who could best me in battle. Then I hit what I believe some call ‘rock bottom’.”
“Oh,” Keitaro’s brow knit. “What to do you mean?”
She smiled at him. “I appreciate your concern. I am all right. I mean that I thought I had lost my chance forever. The one I was sure I loved did not love me back. He was the only man I considered strong enough to defeat me in battle. I thought I was done for and I rushed home to see Naru. I don’t know why. Perhaps I was seeking comfort.” She shrugged. “At any rate, I heard a noise from below and I glanced through Naru’s trap door. And I saw…” She paused, and swallowed. “I saw you…with Naru and Kitsune…” She trailed off.
“Saw us?” Keitaro sprang back, eyes wide. She knew. She knew all of it. He imagined the cold kiss of steel against his throat, the sharp pain as the blade sliced through his neck like butter, and the warmth of his blood escaping.
“Do not panic so, Urashima. I told you I am not angry with you.” She looked down at her feet. “Would you please come back? Your nearness is very soothing.”
After a moment, he shuffled towards her and sat down next to her on the steps. She laid her head on his shoulder.
“It was not until I hit my lowest point and saw them with you that I saw you as someone with the strength to withstand the Aoyama libido, which remains strong despite the curse being kept at bay. So I thought about you for several days and I…watched the three of you together.” She bit her lip. “I am sorry for it, but I could not resist. Still I was not sure if you could perform the ritual. I was sure you did not love me, and I” – she shook her head. “I did not know what I felt. It was not until I recalled something that my brother-in-law said to me that I began to see things differently. He said that love was living for more than just oneself. That it required sacrifice and strength, and that only the brave possessed the means to love truly and fully.” She smiled again, fuller this time. “If love was an act of strength that only the brave could perform, then it made me wonder if the scroll might have allowed another possibility. If, as I have learned, love requires a willingness to take on the hopes and dreams of another and make them one’s own, then perhaps ‘submission’ might mean something other than combat.”
Keitaro scratched his head. “I don’t understand.”
Instead of explaining, she got up from the steps and turned to face him. Falling to her knees she bowed until her forehead touched the ground, the sort of bow reserved for emperors or the most solemn of apologies. “Keitaro Urashima,” she said, “I submit to you. I love you with my whole heart, and I swear that I will make your hopes and dreams my own as I hope you will do for me. She raised her head and he saw that her eyes were glistening again. “Take me as you will, for all that I am I give to you freely. My heart, my soul” – she bit her lip – “and my body: all yours.”
Keitaro felt so dizzy he was sure he would faint. None of it seemed real. He was sure that he was going to wake up any minute and find it was all a dream. She loved him? Since when? How was any of this possible?
“How will we know if this worked?” he asked.
“We can’t be sure until we attempt the ritual,” she said, rising to sit next to him again, “but there are other ways that we can get a good inkling.”
“How?”
Her eyes darted between the ground and him. “Here is one,” she said, at last, and leaned over to press her lips to his. A simple touching of the lips: it was the most innocent kiss he had ever received. For his part he could do nothing, not even move. Then she whimpered – a long and longing sound deep in her throat – and wrapped her arms around him. She held him tight and pressed her lips to his so hard it was almost painful. She smiled like a little girl as she withdrew.
“My first kiss,” he just barely heard her say. “I knew it.”
Just then, there came a rustling in the bushes. Kitsune leapt from the bushes with Naru right behind her. Covered in branches and dirt, the Fox’s eyes were wide and wild. Her mouth contorted into a snarl as she pointed.
“Get away from him, you bitch!”
- 28
- 29
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Tug-of-War