Love Hina - Volume 2 - Chapter 1.4

CHAPTER 4: THE FINAL BATTLE AT THAT MEMORABLE PLACE
 
Waru, hidden safely from sight, checked her watch again. 

It was eleven fifty-eight. According to Suu, Mecha Keitaro was going to arrive in one minute. After it falls into the trap, we have to destroy it pronto , Naru thought. If Mecha Keitaro uttered even one word of what she had typed in the other day, then that would be the end of it. 

And one minute later, as projected, Mecha Keitaro appeared. 

Naru peered through her cameras eye, staring at the image of the Hinata House in the background, with the girls in the foreground striking sexy poses to lure the mecha in Naru’s team held their collective breath as they watched the situation unfold. 
 
“Be a good boy and go to Kitsune,” Nam whispered to herself, and Mecha Keitaro lumbered slowly toward the writhing Kitsune.
 
“Gotcha!” Suu jumped up and said, “It’ll fall into the pit soon enough!” 

“Get ready, you guys,” Naru ordered. Suu and Sara brought their weapons up. Everything was going as planned. But when Narus watch beeped, indicating midnight, for some reason, Mecha Keitaro suddenly stopped moving. 

“Wh-whats going on?” she whispered. 

“I don’t know,” Suu said. Mecha Keitaro stopped just short of the pitfall and slowly twirled its neck around. “What’s wrong?!” Sara growled, frustrated. 

Suddenly Mecha Keitaro s voice box croaked, and it said. 

TRAP 

Everyone was dumbfounded. 

“How did it know?” Naru asked, utterly bewildered. 

Suu blinked. “I don’t know!” 

“Oh, it’s coming this way!” Sara blurted out. 

As they watched, Mecha Keitaro turned away from the pitfall and moved toward Narus team. It seemed to have responded to Naru and Suus voices. 

The plan, such as it was, had utterly failed. But there was no going back. 
 
Narus team jumped out of the bushes and fired their weapons. But Mecha Keitaro skillfully evaded the attacks without a scratch. Their faces went white. 

Mecha Keitaro spoke again. “I . . . CAN . . . SEE . . . YOUR. . . MOVES . . ” 

“It spoke again!” 

“Whats going on?!” Naru demanded. 

“His heart . . .” Suu solemnly said. “Mecha Keitaro has developed emotions. That’s gotta be it!” 

“No way . . . !” Naru couldn’t hide her surprise. But making noise was a fatal mistake. Mecha Keitaro quickly loomed over Naru and grabbed her by the shoulders. 

“Eekf 

“Oh no!” Sara cried. “Naru!” 

Mecha Keitaro dragged Naru, who was struggling tooth and nail, farther away from the group. 

“Let go!” Naru yelled. “Let me go!” 

Suddenly Mecha Keitaro stopped moving. After a moment of silence, it released Naru. 
 
“Now!” Motoko prompted, and the girls attacked all at once. 

But it was in vain. Mecha Keitaro pulled its four legs into the turtle shell of its lower body and flew away into the skies, thanks to its jet propulsion feature. 

The smoke from the jets cleared, and the speechless girls could only stand there. 

Later, the girls split up to go find Mecha Keitaro. But by sunrise, they’d had no luck. 

“Good morning,” a newscaster on the TV said. “This is the news for today, December tenth.” 

Nobody was really watching. Shinobu and Mutsumi were making breakfast in the kitchen. The rest of the girls were in the lobby, discussing options again. 

The sleepy-eyed Kitsune croaked, “What can we do, since we don’t know where it is and my plan failed? So what happens now?” 

“Its not all bad news,’ Sara offered, consoling her. On the table before her was a small chunk of curved metal, which she studied intently. 

“You got some good news or something?” 
 
“Heck yeah!” Suu leaned forward and held up the metal, “Last night when Mecha Keitaro grabbed Naru, we attacked, right? The back of Mecha Keitaro s skull plate fell off, and the wires are exposed now.” 

“What does that mean?” asked Mo toko. 

“Just in case, I built a self-destruct button into the back part of Mecha Keitaro’s head. If you push the button, boom! 
 
Mecha Keitaro will be blown to bits.” 

“Okay, but what’ll happen to you when you push the button?” Naru asked. 
Suu thought hard and answered, “Well, you know.” 

Just then, Shinobu interjected. “Everyone, l-look at the television!” 
 
The girls saw Shinobu frozen to the spot, the breakfast tray teetering in her hand, and so they all focused their attention on the TV. 

The reporter’s expression had changed to a serious tone. “We repeat, this morning an unidentified robot monster was reported at the Hinata City Public Park in central Hinata City. The police and fire departments are looking into the matter. We have a confirmed sighting made by a part-time employee of the Second Balloon Cafe. Here is the interview footage . . ” 

The picture switched over to an employee giving a statement to a news reporter. Naru tilted her head when she saw the store in the background. 

“That store . . .” she said. Naru wasn’t the only one who seemed troubled. 

Suu and Mo toko were perplexed. 

“Its like we’ve been there before ... I think . . .” Suu said slowly. 

“Yeah . . .” Sara agreed, but they couldn’t pinpoint where or when it was. 

Suddenly Naru brightened. “The movie theater!” she exclaimed. 

“Huh?” Kitsune and others were lost. 

The reporter came back with new information. “We have just received this information—the monster robot is now in front of the Hinata Cineplex ... I repeat, the monster robot has appeared!” 

Everyone was dumbstruck. They all looked at Naru. 

“You were so totally right!” they said. 

“But how did you know?” Shinobu asked. 
 
Naru fidgeted and said, “Well—” 

But the reporter interrupted. “Now the monster robot is engaged in a firefight with the police. Can we see what is happening over there? We have images of the scene. Hazuki, can 70u hear us?” 

The TV screen switched to the scene in front of the Hinata Cineplex. The images were coming from a shaky video camera, but it was definitely Mecha Keitaro running around in the background. 

Hazuki, the on-site reporter, struggled to remain professional. “Right now, well actually about a minute ago, the city and raid police were given authorization to fire, and they have started to engage in combat with the monster robot!” 

But it was obvious that the weapons the police force was using weren’t as powerful as the ones Suu and Sara had installed on Mecha Keitaro. The polices marksmanship s kills were top-notch—but they were hitting Mecha Keitaro, round after round, to no effect. 

Mecha Keitaro lurched forward. It raised both of its arms, let out a strange growl, and spit a stream of sparks. 

Everyone assumed that it was a new type of weapon and tensed, hut Suu’s shoulders slumped. “Drat!” she muttered. 

The other girls got the feeling that something very bad was about to happen. 

“The central core is going berserk!” Suu exclaimed. 

“Um, isn’t that dangerous?” Sara asked, her face blanching, 

“What the heck is going on?!” Kitsune demanded. 

Mo toko folded her arms. “Please explain it so we can understand.” 

“Well,” Suu began, “it’s like this—Mecha Keitaro moved around so much that the central core has gone berserk, and if left alone, it will cause a big explosion.” 

The girls gaped at her; Naru pressed for more information. “How big?” she asked. “Like, exactly?” 

Suu thought about it. “Well, the explosion isn’t the normal kind,” she murmured, “so not only will it completely obliterate Hinata City, it could burn down the surrounding forests, too.” 

She said this as if it were not only obvious, but perfectly normal. But there was more. “The self-destruct button isn’t powerful enough to reach the core,” she added. “All it will do is break it into pieces. But if the core has a meltdown ... in one hour, we’re goners.”
 
Naru and the girls imagined the same thing—a pillar of fire shooting up in the sky, and the following explosion wiping the whole city out. . . the end of Hinata. 

“No . . . Oh dear . .. !” Shinobus eyes rolled to the back of her head and she promptly passed out. 

“There’s no use freaking out over it!” Kitsune roared. “Bring on the booze! Booze!” 

Motoko held a writing tablet and wrote, “The bushido code of honor demands my death. I must now write my last poem from Mutsumi didn’t quite grasp the situation. “Oh my.” She squeaked. She seemed only slightly surprised, like she’d just missed a bus or something. 

Everyone was panicking except Naru. 

“We can’t give up just yet,” she said calmly. The girls looked at her. “We’ll use the last resort.” She looked utterly serious, determined. 
 
Mecha Keitaro broke through the police barricades and headed inexorably toward the Hinata Aquarium. The police fired again when they reached the site, but received counterfire from Mecha Keitaro and were forced to retreat. 

No one could stop Mecha Keitaro now. The prefectural government had set up an emergency meeting to deal with the grave situation. The Self Defense Forces were preparing to deploy in case there was a request for their assistance, but the bureaucratic meeting just dragged on without any clear resolution. 

With no one stopping Mecha Keitaro, it left the aquarium and then suddenly disappeared. As if it had a specific objective . . . 

“Is it really going to come here?” Shinobu asked with a worried look, but Naru shook her head and gazed far away. The others just stood there, puzzled. 

Naru told them that a certain walkway, located on the outskirts of city, was the place Mecha Keitaro would finally appear. The girls ran there as fast as t!iey could. 

The walkway was located at a high point overlooking the city, but there were many similar such places, so it was hard to imagine Mecha Keitaro specifically coming to that very one. 

Sara looked at her watch and exclaimed, “We only have five minutes left!” 

“Hey, Naru, he’s gonna come here, right?!” Kitsune asked, her face draining of all color. 

Suddenly, a mechanical clang rang out. It was the distinct noise of a broken machine. 

“Look! Over there!” Mo toko pointed ahead. 

On the land bridge connecting the observation tower and the walkway, Mecha Keitaro crawled toward them. It was in horrible shape. The girls gasped at its disfigurement. 

The police rounds had mostly destroyed its outer armor, and the frayed internal wiring stuck out. Some parts were burned from the partial fires that still broke out on its body. The face, now a burnt, blackened, skeletonlike structure, was mostly gone. It didn’t look like Keitaro anymore. It looked ghastly. 

“I feel sorry for it. . .” Shinobu lamented. “I mean really, really sorry.” 
 
Mutsumi had tears in her eyes. “Urashima,” she murmured, still unable to differentiate between the real Keitaro and the mecha. 

Sara yelled, “Three more minutes!” 

When Naru heard that, she suddenly straightened her shoulders. “Everyone, wait here!” she ordered, then ran to Mecha Keitaro. 

“Stupid girl!” Kitsune called out. “Don’t go by yourself At least not unarmed!” 

Kitsune tried to follow her, but Motoko stubbornly blocked the path. “She must have a plan. Lets trust Naru.” 

So the girls stood there and waited as the minutes slowly ticked down. 

On the other side of the bridge, Naru stood in front of Mecha Keitaro. The horrible machine tried to raise both arms to embrace her and made hurt, animal-like noises. Naru, hesitant at first, finally gathered her courage and spoke. 

“You don’t have to be angry,” she said. “You know me, right? It’s Naru.” 

Mecha Keitaro stopped moving. The exposed camera eye focused on Naru, and its tattered voice box squawked. 
 
“NA . .. RU . . ” 

“Yes,” she said, trying to play it cool, “I knew you were going to come here. You were trying to go back there, right?” Naru pointed at the old photo print machine behind her. It was a memorable place for Naru and the real-life Keitaro. 

One year before, on the twenty-first of October, Naru and Keitaro took a picture of themselves on their first date. Naru had realized something during the morning news— Mecha Keitaro kept appearing in spots in the order that they visited them on their date. 

Naru didn’t really know why Mecha Keitaro was revisiting their date course, though. 

It turned out that the calendar mechanism in Mecha Keitaro’s brain had malfunctioned, and instead of it being December tenth (12/10), it was erroneously set to October twenty-first (10/21). Mecha Keitaros behavior pattern reflected that of the real Keitaro, thinking that today was the big date. 
 
“Hurry, Naru! Only one minute left!” Suu urged from far away. 

“I’m sorry,” Naru softly said to the damaged creature. “Lets end this.” She reached to the back of Keitaros head. 

Then it spoke again, struggling to get out the words, Naru was surprised, '"or a split second, her mind overlapped Keitaros image on the burnt, black, skeletal visage. No matter how much his feelings were hurt, or his body was battered, Keitaro was always by her side. Looking at the disfigured Mecha Keitaro, she remembered all the memories shed had with Keitaro thus far. 

“I... I... LOVE... YOU... NARUSE... GAWA...” 

Naru hugged Mecha Keitaro as best she could and said, “Thank you for letting me remember.” 

As she embraced the tortured mecha, her fingers found the button on the back of its head. 

Sara yelled, “Thirty seconds!” 

Naru closed her eyes—and pushed the button. 

Mecha Keitaros eyes flashed for a second. Then tiny particles radiated around its body, first collapsing toward the center, then bursting out, pushing Naru away Naru landed far away from the mecha. 
 
The energy grew and intensified. The last thing she saw was its face as it turned toward her. It seemed like it was smiling. 

Then, WHOOOSH! 

Mecha Keitaro became a giant ball of fire and broke into a million sparkling pieces. 

Motoko rushed forward and helped Naru up. Together they joined the other girls, and they all gazed sadly upon the flames. 

“Its over,” Mutsumi quietly said. 

“But why didn’t it attack Naru?” Shinobu pondered, tilting her head. None of the girls had been able to hear Naru and Mecha Keitaros last conversation. 

“Did it really have emotions?” Motoko wondered. 

Kitsune replied, “ Well, we’ll never know, will we?” 

Naru heard them, but she remained silent. She could never explain that this was their first date. She didn’t want to be teased, and more importantly, she wished to keep the precious memory all to herself. 

 
And so Hinata City was saved. Even Hinata House returned to its normal, peaceful state. The sun shone brightly. The birds sang. Life continued on much as it always had. 

Naru sighed, smiling slightly, as she raked leaves into neat little piles in the center courtyard of the girls’ dorm. 

“I got it!” Suu called out to her suddenly. 

“What did you get, Suu?” 

“I finally figured out why Mecha Keitaro spoke,” she explained. “According to my reports, someone turned off the laptop while the voice commands were still being uploaded, and the word fragments were randomly chosen.” 

Naru looked perplexed. “So those words were . . 

“Just a coincidence,” Suu concluded. 

How could such a thing possibly be a coincidence ? Naru thought. She wondered if Mecha Keitaro really did have some of Keitaro’s emotions. 

Sara ran up to Suu and said, “Kaolla, let’s go play!” 

You re on! 

“Both of you, don’t bother Shinobu or Motoko while they’re studying,” Naru warned, but she tempered her words with a cheerful smile. 
 
Suu and Sara ran off, giggling. 

Nam sighed and pulled out her address book. On the back side of the leather cover was a photo sticker. It was a picture she had taken of herself, after she had bidden farewell to Mecha Keitaro. 

I look a little lost like Keitaro before he met me,” Nam murmured, then looked up to the blue skies and smiled.