{Chapter 9 : Miss Keiichi arrives!}
"....if Rebecca Nurse be tainted, then nothing's left to stop the whole green world from burning."
- Reverend John Hale, The Crucible by Arthur Miller

    Belldandy couldn't hear anything but the screaming. It drowned everything out, and was shattering everything it touched.

    Thought.
    Resolve.
    Understanding.
    Fulfilment.
    Love.
    Hope.
    Happiness.
    Mind.
    Joy.

    And it was doing just that, to her.
    "Uruz!" Belldandy was shouting over the screaming now. Uruz didn't care if she heard Belldandy, she just kept screaming.
    Belldandy couldn't take it anymore. Black bile rose in her. She raised a palm.

    *whook-*
    *-PITSCH*

    Belldandy slapped Uruz, hard. Its thunder rose above everything else.

    The screaming stopped, the sound of the slap echoing replacing it.

    Then the silence was worse than if Uruz had kept screaming. Not even the insects made a sound.

    It was as if the Earth had just died.

    "Uruz!" Belldandy hissed. She was more than angry, she knew it. She couldn't stop herself.... she wouldn't, that seething black bile was building up in her. Belldandy let it rise, she wouldn't suppress it now. "Stop that now!" she demanded.
    And up till now, Belldandy had never demanded anything.
    Urd and Skuld stopped. Banpei was still digging single-mindedly. He had only batteries left for another two minutes, he had to work at full power.
    Urd stared.
    Skuld stared.
    There was a first time for everything.
    It was nothing they would have dared to see, or ever thought to see.
    Belldandy was angry. Nothing had come close to this or could describe her anger, nothing would ever again. A breath away from vengeance, she had clearly crossed her threshold for patience, which Urd and Skuld had thought was an invincible brick wall. Looked like Uruz was the demolition crew for more than one thing.
    Uruz stared at Belldandy, both their eyes were wet.
    Belldandy wasn't so beautiful anymore. She was desperate. She looked like she could kill Uruz. That would've meant annihilation by the Almighty, to murder in cold blood was an unforgivable offence.
    And for someone like the Almighty, forgiveness was almost given freely.

*     *     *

    Peorth's office shook. Actually, everything shook. Yggdrasil, the Heavens, its inhabitants, computer terminals, bugs, Gods and Goddesses alike. Sleipnir almost lost his footing.
    Something was wrong. That wasn't going to be rumour, that was going to be fact.
    Peorth knew that from the start. This wasn't Yggdrasil acting up, it wasn't the bugs' fault this time. Something else had happened, and if Peorth was right.....
    "Yggdrasil! Priority override! Peorth, First Class Goddess will be going to investigate!" Peorth yelled, and disappeared even before Yggdrasil responded. Everywhere else, Gods and Goddesses were picking themselves off the floor, and then whatever they were holding.

*     *     *

    Uruz sat there, numbed. Her cheek throbbed abominably.
    Belldandy had managed to control her anger, swallow hard, and go back to digging for Keiichi while Urd had ignored her after that, digging as well.
    Banpei beeped, pointing to something in the rubble before he shut down.
    Belldandy had, without a thought, lifted the entire pile of rubble off that area and dumped it callously to one side.
    Skuld looked first. Well, she recognized the head, face down on the destroyed floor. And even though she wasn't a medical whiz, she recognized that the head was connected to the rest of the body too. In fact, the body was heaving. That was good.
    What wasn't so good was that that it was also a bloody body, and bent at unnatural angles here and there. Skuld immediately grabbed a couple of spare power packs from somewhere in her shirt and set them into Banpei. She ordered him to go find medical supplies.
    Belldandy ran over and turned Keiichi onto his back.
    Well, he had been a he a half hour back.
    Urd stared. She was sure she hadn't dumped any of those expired medicines into Keiichi's food recently. At least, not the ones that made hair grow. (She would've been rich selling that medicine, if only she hadn't any need for money.) Urd reasoned Uruz's foulup had something to do with this.
    "What's going on here!?" Exclaimed a very surprised voice from behind.
    Urd turned. Peorth. Urd wondered if Peorth had given Uruz any wrong tips?
    "Peorth....?" Urd muttered.
    Uruz turned at the name. She looked like the Almighty himself had come down to check on her welfare alone.
    "One-sama!" Uruz exclaimed, in something between relief, happiness, and self-abuse. She started flying up to Peorth, but Peorth stared at Uruz disbelievingly.
    "You did this?" Peorth asked, gesturing to the rubble around her. Uruz stopped, dead in the air. Peorth looked disapproving. That guilt was returning.
    And to be asked that question by the one person she had loved and admired as a teacher and sister, that hit her hard.
    "P...peorth....?" Uruz looked. She took a deep breath.
    Peorth looked at Belldandy, cradling Keiichi in her lap, casting healing spell after healing spell on him. Peorth walked past Uruz and knelt down besides Belldandy, casting her own spells to mend Keiichi in whatever way they could.
    Uruz felt her world truly die around her.
    Why did it have to be Guilt?
    Because it's always Guilt that gets to you.

    And from the skies above, dark clouds gathered. Then a laser beam shot down, red and angry. It burned a hole in the rubble and cleared a pretty large area around it, the radius of destruction barely missing Uruz. She looked at what was left in the middle of it. It was a message, glowing in the cryptic language of the Heavens.
    "Recalling Uruz, Second Class Goddess, Third Category, License currently under indefinite suspension, to the Heavens. You shall be put under escort and probation during this time. An emergency recall gate shall be set up within the next three hours.
    And I shall see you when you get back."
    That message needed no signature, everyone knew Who it came from.
    Uruz just knelt in front of the message, and cried.

*     *     *

    Mara watched as a second laser graced the temple grounds, but this time from the sky down. She knew something bad was going on, and it wasn't anyone's definition of bad.
    It was bad's definition of bad.
    But in his bottle, Senbee didn't really care. He was as high on Happy as he could ever be, and more coming in every second. He was doing some jig in his bottle.
    "Yeah! Senbee ha-appy happy high!"
    Mara slapped the bottle. Senbee shut up and stopped dancing.
    "Shut up! I need to think!" Mara hissed at him. She knew she had done some really bad things in her life, but she didn't really want to go that far. Even demonesses had to have their limits, since their primary goal was to achieve as many demonic contracts as possible, not cause trouble, unless authorized and ordered to by the Demon High Council to be really bad. They mostly left the bad deeds to the Humans. Besides, Mara knew she didn't have a bone to pick with this Uruz Goddess, whom Senbee had told her was granting Keiichi's wish. Well, Mara thought. This is really fine and dandy. You've done it this time, Mara. You've committed your year's worth of evil deeds in a few minutes.
    At least Mara wouldn't have to cause trouble for the rest of the year. She'd caused enough to last a lifetime.

*     *     *

    When Keiichi finally woke up, there was this distinctly uncomfortable pressure on his chest. His body ached like he'd been pounded by Tamiya after a drinking marathon, and he felt weird. At least, that was the way he'd put it.
    But he wasn't dead, or crippled. He hoped.
    "Keiichi-san?" It was Belldandy. Her face was looking down at him. Keiichi realized that he was lying on her lap. He struggled to get up, but she put a finger on his forehead.
    "No, you need to rest. You're badly hurt."
    "Belldandy?" Keiichi's throat felt raw, he must've breathed in too much dust when the world blew up around him.
    Yeah, he remembered that part. Uruz had barely started to utter something before the laser beam from her head and suddenly expaned outwards. With impressive pyrotechnical results, he noted. Maybe that was why he felt so weird.
    Looking around, he saw Urd, Skuld and Peorth clustered around him. He reached up to feel his head. It was bandaged. His hand felt crusty and sticky. He looked at it. What a lot of blood.
    Maybe that was what the weird feeling was.... he's lost a lot of blood. But he wasn't dead.
    He wondered if the Ultimate Force had something to do with this. There had been that wish granting part?
    Oh yeah, the wish.
    Then he heard someone sobbing, then wailing. It touched something off in his heart, something very sympathetic and pained. The wailing echoed into a distant cry, which carried for miles. It was ghostly.
    "Who's crying?" Keiichi croaked, then coughed.
    Belldandy looked up and behind her for a second, then back at him.
    "Uruz." Belldandy sounded strangled.
    "What's wrong?"
    "Nothing." Belldandy replied, quickly. This wasn't characteristic of her, Keiichi noted.
    "Belldandy." It wasn't a question.
    "Yes, Keiichi-san?" Belldandy sounded as if she was tired. Maybe she just wanted to sleep, but not before Keiichi was really OK.
    "I'm fine.... I just need to sit up. I could do with a little rest, but not now." Keiichi wanted to see what was wrong with Uruz. Sad didn't describe the way she sounded now. That ghostly echo of a wail was haunting, the wailing itself horrible.
    "But...." Belldandy tried to say. But she had overexerted herself. Succumbing to sleep, she fell flat across Keiichi's chest, asleep before she even fell halfway. Keiichi's arm went up in reflex to stop her head from smacking into the ground.
    Then Peorth's hand appeared, a small glow in it, supporting Belldandy's head. There was an unusual pressure against his chest, Keiichi noted. He was definitely embarrassed now though. Belldandy's chest was pressing full force against his own.
    Peorth slowly lifted Belldandy off of Keiichi, and laid her down on a reasonably flat and stable stack of rubble. Keiichi sat up, painfully. The weight was still there, on his chest.
    It felt familiar, somehow. A long time ago, in April, he had felt this. (Note : Cherry Blossoms bloom sometime in April. Go figure.)
    This???
    His hand went up to his chest. And came up against something round and soft. Not too comfortably too. And "he" finally knew what that weird feeling was.
    Oh great. This was really going to spoil 'his' mood in the morning.

    "Well, there goes the neighbourhood." Urd told Skuld as Keiichi sat up and felt around. Peorth was looking after Belldandy as she slept, and the crying went on unabated. Urd was beginning to get irritated by that noise though. She turned towards the source of it. "Will somebody please shut her up!? Skuld, a bomb please?"
    Skuld looked at Urd. Keiichi turned and looked at Urd. Urd noticed them looking at her.
    "Urd! Have some compassion!" Skuld chided. Urd was surprised at the girl's spunk. Keiichi said nothing, instead just picking himself off the floor (Urd and Skuld had a hard time even thinking of Keiichi as a 'her'.) and treaded gingerly over the sharp and twisted debris of the former temple towards the crater in the rubble. Being a barefooted mortal had its downside.

    Uruz couldn't help herself, she just lay on the floor besides the Almighty's message, limp, letting them flow. Her tears. She couldn't stop it. Everything she'd worked for, shot on a one way ticket to Hell.
    She was probably going to end up there too, considering what she had done. Hurting clients wasn't the best way to get promoted.
    It was your fault, Uruz told herself. You bungled up because you were too excited and impatient to retry again later. She mocked herself. See? This is what happens when you meet someone you admire and lose your cool. You lose everything you worked for. She cursed herself, abused herself verbally and condemned herself, among other things.
    But most of all, she wouldn't forgive herself. Belldandy might, the Almighty most likely would somehow, Keiichi could grudgingly, maybe even Peorth by some stroke of miracle.
    She kept on crying, she couldn't do anything else. She dropped face up to the floor, still crying.

    Keiichi sat at the rim of the crater, watching Uruz. There was nothing 'he' could do, to comfort her or to help her. 'He' shouldn't have made that wish, then maybe this wouldn't have happened.
    Maybe? 'He' asked him/herself. It was on Uruz's insistence I make that wish, Keiichi reminded himself. But that isn't her fault, nor mine! Something had to have gone wrong somewhere else! Keiichi thought, trying to ease his guilty conscience. Yeah, tell that to her, you sad, sad little guy. Heck, you ain't even a guy anymore. Keiichi winced. Being a half-girl wasn't to affect him much for now, he had maybe two weeks left to find a solution. Unless someone he knew (or, occasionally, the one he didn't) decided to drop by.
    And they did, often.
    And then there was that added problem of Uruz. He knew she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and would probably do something stupid if he didn't try something.
    Well, all he could do was try, he had nothing left to hope for.

*     *     *

    Megumi dialed Keiichi's number, to let him know she was going over to his place in a couple of days' time after she and her girl-friends had finished their stay at a beach resort down by the Tokyo Beachside resort.
    The line wouldn't connect, and Megumi was tempted to try again, but her friends were getting impatient.
    "Megumi! Can't you call your brother later!? We're going to miss the bus!" one of them yelled.
    Megumi looked at them, then at the phone, and back at them. She nodded. She could alwys call later.
    "Alright already! I'm coming!" And picked up her sack, hastily locking her door on the way out. The Earth Spirit, now the local rat, watched as Megumi left. He had felt some disruptions to his powerlines a while back, which had coincided with the delayed explosion he heard a while back. He didn't have a good feeling about tis. He decided to check in on Belldandy.

*     *     *

    Belldandy regained consciousness two hours later, and sat up. It was growing dark fast,  and the sky was tinged with the dying light of the sun. Dark, black clouds were beginning to gather, and these didn't have a silver lining of any sort. Peorth, without having to be asked, pointed to where Keiichi had been sitting the last two hours, looking into that crater. The effect was surreal, the way the orange red sunset shone on everything from one side and shadowed the other.
    "Go find out why he's sitting there." Was all Peorth said. Belldandy nodded and went over to Keiichi's side. She still hadn't gotten over Keiichi's unusual transformation. Could it be a relapse of Urd's medicine when that explosion had occured?
    Not likely. It must've been Uruz.
    Speaking of which, Uruz was in the center of the crater, silent now. Keiichi turned to look at Belldandy as she sat down besides 'him'.
    "Keiichi-san?" Belldandy asked, tentatively. She wasn't sure how Keiichi would react to 'his' new status. "I'm sorry this happened."
    Keiichi turned slowly to look at Belldandy. 'His' facial features hadn't changed much, except maybe the skin was a lot smoother, 'his' chin was a little more pointed, cheekbones higher. Actually, Keiichi looked quite cute. But this wasn't the time to consider that! Belldandy chided herself.
    "It's not your fault, Belldandy." Keiichi even sounded cute. 'He' sighed. "And I'm hoping it's not her fault." Keiichi looked at Uruz, flat on her back facing the sky, staring. She'd finally stopped crying, but only because she ran out of tears. Belldandy followed 'his' gaze, and was immediately sorry she had lost control of herself then.
    Uruz, Belldandy could feel, was a mass of turmoils and dejection. She had done her best, had put her entire self into it. Belldandy always preached about the importance of doing one's best, and about the rewards of such endeavours, and Keiichi had always believed that because 'he' had a Goddess to back it up. But now, he wasn't so sure anymore. He wasn't so sure about anything anymore. That person lying on the floor in the center of that crater was proof. She was a Goddess, she had done her best, and look at what it had done to her.
    So now what? Keiichi asked 'himself'.
    "Shall we go down there... Keiichi-san?" Belldandy asked.
    "............yeah."

    Uruz didn't notice, or care is she had, the two figures slipping and sliding down the edge of the crater and towards her. She was just waiting. The sky had grown dark, and her mood with it.
    "Uruz?" It was an unfamiliar voice. Uruz swivelled her eyeballs. She thought she saw Keiichi, battered, bruised, a little unfamiliar, but alive. She chuckled to herself, sardonically. Keiichi didn't have a 'chest'. Not like that one.
    "Yeah?" Uruz had nothing left to lose, so why not with the attitude problem?
    "You all right?" Uruz kept looking. This person sounded strange, but looked familiar.
    "It's me, Keiichi."
    Uruz just blinked. Then she turned her head to the side, looking at the ground.
    "Leave me be." All trace of the life that used to be hers was gone.
    "I just want to let you know-" Keiichi continued. Uruz wouldn't let 'him' finish. She sat up, stared straight at Keiichi, and hissed. Keiichi backed off, as if the fine misted spittle flying through her clenched teeth was venom.
    "Leave. Me. Be." She emphasized each syllable like a word on its own. Belldandy had heard these words spoken a while back, but the way Uruz said them made Belldandy wish she had never heard them at all. Belldandy put a hand on Keiichi's shoulder. Keiichi shrugged it off.
    "I just wanted you to know, I'm sorry." Keiichi said before 'he' turned around and began to walk off. "Belldandy?"
    Belldandy wasn't listening. She was reading the still-glowing text in the ground.
    "....emergency recall gate.... three hours..... see you..... get back."
    Belldandy turned around, eyes wide, just as Keiichi realized Uruz wasn't going to be mellowing out down here on Earth. And from Belldandy's look, Keiichi knew that Someone up there wanted answers, straight from Uruz.
    Just as the gate opened.

*     *     *

    Skuld, Urd and Peorth were holding conference as to how best to rebuild the temple. Of course, each had their own idea as how it would be like rebuilt.
    "I want it to have a wine cellar, a mini bar, and racks and racks of alcoholic imbibables!" Urd said.
    "Is that all? You are so shallow, Urd!" Skuld retorted. "It'll have garages.... and testing facilities.... and... and... a great huge cycling track!" Skuld's eyes were shining and she let her daydreaming get the better of her. Urd and Peorth exchanged worried looks.
    "I think we better ask Keiichi." Peorth wasn't going to describe her own private ideas in detail to the two Goddesses. She had ideas, sure, but she'd wait until everything else was ready first.
    Then a maroon light added to the setting, blood red sun and bathed them all in reddish light. Everyone looked. It had finally opened, the gate. Peorth was the first one there, looking. Uruz just let herself be lifted off the ground, limp, like the 'rag doll' Skuld had pulled out of the rubble earlier. Peorth went down to the base of the crater, where Keiichi was staring up.
    "Do something!" Keiichi urged as Peorth came down. "She's your.... disciple!"
    Peorth looked on helplessly. "I can't do anything!" She wailed.
    At the sound of Peorth's voice, Uruz turned to look. The gate was bringing her up faster now. Peorth stared straight at Uruz.
    Peorth felt as if she had betrayed Uruz just by standing there, watching.
    Worse than seeing betray, hurt or even anger at Peorth, Uruz had only one expression, which Peorth saw.
    "I failed you."

    Peorth dropped to her knees.

{End of Chapter 9}
{Chapter 10 : Seeing the pain, feeling the words}