Author's note: This story was inspired by a story seed planted on the
FFML and abandoned by its original author.  Unfortunately, I forgot
to write down who planted the original seed.  If that person would
step forward and remind me (or someone else remind me), I'd give
them credit for the basic idea.

Prologue 1:

        He stood upon the ramparts of the Shining Land, and gazed
down upon the Earth.  The Shining Land is guarded, or more
accurately, defined by a barrier.  Some see it as mountains, others
see it as like the Great Wall of China, and others see it as a hedge of
thorns that rises to infinity, a barrier of flame, a barbed wire fence,
or a million other things.  Indeed, in the Shining Land, almost
everything is perceived according to how the observer believes it
should be.  It is, was, and yet will be Tir na' Og, the Elysian Fields,
Valhalla, Avalon, Arcadia, and Valinor.  

        It is here that those set by the One who made all things to
watch over humanity reside.  They have been called gods, kamis,
boddhisatvas, ascended masters, honored elders, kachinas, avatars,
celestines, eldils, spirits, and even angels.  Beings of spirit who take
on flesh, though it is but a mask for them.  They have been
worshipped, revered, served, hated, reviled, and disbelieved in for
endless millenia, ever since other beings existed capable of doubting
them.  Typically, all of these actions were done for the wrong
reasons.  They were not omnipotent, omniscient, or omnipresent,
unlike their maker.  They could not see every evil, or necessarily
right it.  While often flouted, and sometimes broken horribly, they
were, in theory, bound by rules which guided their actions, and laws
which prohibited certain deeds, for they were not perfect, any more
than any other created creature.  

       Wiser than any human, stronger, faster, smarter, more powerful,
it had often often proven far too true of them that by having more
power, they were simply enabled to make larger mistakes.  A million
failures, a million disasters haunted them.  Time was passing, and
many of them grew weary, coming to understand what a handful of
them had understood from the very beginning, the vast potential for
sorrow inherent in life.  

        Some had fallen, becoming demons, seeking to ensnare souls
and prevent them from rising to the One, or like Morgoth, seeking
to turn the world from the path for which it had been made, to
introduce their own tune into the music of the Ainur, the song they
had all once sung before the Creator, the song of the world and all
its history.  It was a song they barely remembered now, for that had
been long ago, even by the scales of time they measured, a half
remembered dream.  

        Others had despaired, laid down their guardianship, and
returned to the One, for they could no longer stand to watch the
mistakes mortals made.  For that was often all they could do; in
Elder Times, they had meddled far more, and most times, it
backfired, leading to disaster.  Some had become more subtle, while
others had largely given up.  Even the Great Mystery, the walking of
the Creator himself upon the Earth, did not seem to many of them to
have made much of a difference, indeed, some whispered it had
caused more trouble than it was worth, though ones willing to
whisper such things, even to themselves, were few.  It was, rather,
the Great Mystery.  They did not understand it, but they knew they
did not have to.  The salvation of souls was in the hands of the
Creator; while they facilitated it, the task they had been given was
the Guardianship of the Earth, to protect the mortals from those
among their number who had fallen and sought mastery over them
and over all of creation.  And that task they still prosecuted well. 
Anything else was gravy, so to speak.

        The one who looked down, was one of those who wanted
more gravy.  Humanity was hurtling towards destruction, its
technology outpacing its spiritual growth.  Indeed, it was spiritually
regressing, he was sure.  They were crossing the final line, the final
barrier that held them back from self destruction, from the abolition
of man.  They sought to unlock the keys of genetic engineering, that
they might remake themselves to become whatever they desired.

        Gainnoel was sure this was wrong.  They had been made in the
image of the Creator.  Such an act would shatter that likeness, and
could lead only to disaster.  He needed but think of the uses to
which the power the Creator had locked within every atom to know
what humans would make of this power.  Mutating plagues which
evolved faster than the immune system could adapt to them. 
Genetically engineered warriors.  Babies coming to order from mail-
order catalogs.  Racists unleashing diseases that only killed people of
a certain race.  A loss of any tolerance for imperfections in the
human body.  A million nightmares filled his mind.  They had been
appointed to prevent humanity destroying itself, and yet nothing was
done about the nukes, the machines of war, the out of control
technology, and now...this.

         Something had to be done.  The Elder Children of the One, the
Eldar, the Elves, the Faeries,  had already had to flee the world, their
time past, gathered into The Shining Land to wait for the Last
Battle.  Soon, the Younger Children, the race of Man, would meet
its end as well.  Unless they learned the dangers inherent in what
they were doing.  Unless they came to spiritual enlightenment,
became better, higher than what they were, they would obliterate
themselves.  The next war would be humanity's last battle, for it
would be a war that no one could win.

         The Valar, the ruling council of twelve who led the Ainur who
dwelt in the Shining Land, would not listen to him.  Even Olorin,
who had walked upon the Earth in the Third Age and helped to
organize its defense against Sauron, a renegade Maiar (the name for
the lesser Ainur, who greatly outnumbered the Valar, and served
them), and Tulkas, the battle leader of the Valar, would not listen to
him, though Tulkas clearly chafed at the bit laid upon them by the
rulings of the Valar.  Where Tulkas said simply that he had to obey
the laws he had helped to make, Olorin had rambled on and on about
his experiences in Midgard, telling endless anecdotes about hobbits
and elves, and someone named Boromir, none of which made any
sense to Gainnoel, who had spent most of the Third Age trying to
replicate the Silmarils under the guidance of Aule, the great smith of
the Valar.  

        The end of the long rambling speech, however, did make
somewhat more sense to Gainnoel.  "We live in the seventh day,
now, Gainnoel.  Do you remember what happened on the seventh
day?"  Olorin tapped his pipe and frowned, relighting it with a tiny
burst of flame.  Ever since the Third Age, he had favored the same
flesh body, a white haired old man with a huge beard.  Gainnoel,
himself looked like one of the Younger Children now, a man in the
prime of life, short and broadly built, clearly one of the Makers, the
servants of Aule.  Once he had worn a body of one of the Elder
Children, but when they had retired from the world, he had taken on
new flesh as a symbol of his continued involvement in the world.  It
was, in fact, a good way to distinguish between those who had
remained involved in the world through the ages and those who
increasingly concerned themselves only with the Shining Land and
with the Elder Children, who dwelt among them, for the Elder
Children do not die, even if they want to, which is both a blessing
and a curse.

        "The Creator rested.  But what has that got to do with
anything?"

          "What age is this?"

          "What is this, a final exam?  The seventh age, which began
when the One became flesh and walked among them.  The final age,
if I remember anything of the music we sang so long ago."  He was
just as old as Olorin, but Olorin always seemed to treat him as a
child, which irritated him.  
          "The time for work is done.  There comes a point where the
child must be allowed to make his own mistakes.  This is not to say
that we cannot warn them, try to show them the mistakes they make,
but we are no longer allowed to use force against them, not unless
they have become puppets of the darker powers.  Only against them
may we strike.  We cannot make humanity do anything, and indeed,
too many times in the past when we did use force, it came back to
bite us."  He took a strong puff from his pipe.  "I suppose I should
give this up one of these days; it is rather cheating for me to do this
when I take no risks by doing so, but still...I do enjoy a good
smoke."  He blew three rings, interlocked with each other, and for a
moment, Gainnoel simply watched Olorin.  The man could do magic
with pipes and smoke and fires, even without using the power he
possessed.  Perhaps it was Narya, the ring of fire, but more likely, it
was simply millennia of practice.  

         "Then you advocate we sit back and watch them self-destruct? 
We're supposed to be their guides, their guardians, their teachers!" 
Gainnoel couldn't believe it.  Olorin had been one of the greatest
meddlers among their numbers in his time, though he had not walked
among the Younger Children since the Third Age.  

           "I never made myself a king when I walked among them, I
was an advisor to kings," Olorin said.  "We were not made to rule
them, but to be their parents, to help them grow to adulthood.  But
no one ever makes it to adulthood unless they are allowed to take
responsibility for themselves.  We could baby them, correct their
every mistake, stop every possible disaster.  And they would never,
ever grow up.  They would remain children, locked in dependency
on us.  I was a guide, an advisor, a source of leadership at times, but
I took the lead only when others could not.  My job was to show
them the road and to remove the obstacles that were truly beyond
their power, but it was their job to walk that road and grow by
crossing every barrier that was not beyond their power themselves. 
It is in that way that they grew.  If they do not learn on their own to
control the wonders they have made, if they depend on us to stop
them from making mistakes, they will never learn to not make the
mistakes in the first place."

          "And if they destroy themselves in the process of learning?  Is
it not a sin to fail to stop an evil we could have prevented?" 
Gainnoel shouted.

         "We were not appointed to lay judgement upon the mortals,
except if they seek to violate the Shining Land," Olorin said.  "I do
not say we should do nothing.  But I will say that the world was
made for them, not for us.  It is their world; if they choose to
destroy it, they will be punished, but not by our hands.  If the One
bids us act as you desire, then I will.  And certainly, I do not intend
to simply sit back and let them self-destruct.  But we cannot
intervene directly unless they ask it of us.  Does that gall you,
Gainnoel?  That we are their servants as well as of the One?  That
there are those among them who will one day sit in judgement over
us?"  His voice had turned more serious now.  "We do not know the
mind of our Maker in all things, Gainnoel.  Why do they have bodies
of fixed flesh, unlike us, who can put on and take off bodies like a
garment?  Why were they not gifted with the power we wield or the
magic that was the birthright of the Elder Children?  What is the
ultimate plan?  How does the Music end and what does it mean? 
Once we could have done what you requested, but not now. 
Humanity holds dominion over the Earth, and we may not enter
unless they invite us in.  It is the seventh age, the age of Man, the
age of Clay, in which they mold it to their will.  They may forge a
great beauty that will make us cry to see it, make us cry tears of joy. 
Or we may lament with Nienna to see the horror they have wrought. 
But ultimately, we must face the hardest part of parenting.  Letting
the children step out into the world and face it on their own.  Trust,
Gainnoel.  Trust in the will of the Creator.  This is what he desires. 
This world is a forge of souls, and no metal can be aught but dross
unless it passes first through the fire."

         Gainnoel simply stalked away.  Something had to be done.  It
was not possible that the One would wish they simply sit back and
talk.  No one listened to advice; his efforts to persuade Olorin had
proved that to him.  Why would the mortals listen any better?  No, it
would take more direct action.  But not too direct.  There were rules
and also importantly, anything too blatant would simply be stopped
if it was clearly the result of action from Valinor.  But what Olorin
had said, had planted a seed in his head.  Olorin was not the only one
of the Ainur to walk upon the Earth in the Third Age.  The question
was whether or not the ones he sought were still there...

        Olorin watched him go, and sighed.  The boy will do something
foolish, he thought.  Best to make sure someone keeps an eye on
him so he doesn't make too much of a mess.  And best to tell Nienna
in case he does. 

Prologue 2:

       There are few rules held to by both gods and demons in the
Seventh Age of the world.  Indeed, it is part of the nature of demons
to break rules.  Yet, there is at least one rule that both sides of the
conflict hold to.  That rule holds that the supernatural must always
be invited into one's life.  Once one has given consent, quite often
the supernatural never leaves, but neither gods nor demons may
force themselves upon those around them, at least not using
supernatural means.  A demon can put on mortal flesh, knock on
your door, and try to sell you a toaster, but you will never simply
wake up possessed unless you were asking for it, one way or
another.

        Of course, demons tend to take a rather looser definition of
'invitation', such as reading fantasy novels or cursing out people
who cut you off in traffic, or simply speaking the name of one of
them aloud.  The gods, on the other hand, are held to a higher
standard.  It takes prayer, fasting, faith, and occassionally, luck to
enable them to intervene, though they too have sometimes come
simply at the invocation of their name.  Part of this is due to the fact
that they are much freer to intervene if they are acting to thwart the
demons and other supernatural menaces.  And part of it is that their
restraint is as much a matter of choice as of rules.  Sometimes, they
see a greater need to intervene and seize on flimsier excuses.  Still,
there are certain ways in which either can be invoked, but they all
boil down to the same thing, calling upon the higher (or lower)
powers to intervene.

        The methods used have evolved over time; while some of the
kamis seem blissfully unaware that the First Age ever ended, others
have become rather more...high tech.  This is especially the case
among the servants of Aule, the smith of Valinor.  All of the Valar
emulate some aspect of the One, not so much from imitation, but
because all things made by the One reflect him in some way, though
sometimes that way may become twisted beyond recognition.  To
him was given the talent, the taste, the drive to make, to create, to
bring out the elephant in every block of stone.  He alone among the
Valar had striven to create a race of sentients, long ago in his
impatience as they waited for the Elder and Younger Children of the
One to awaken.  It had been a mistake, for the creation of such
beings had been reserved to the One alone, but he had meant no
harm, and the One had blessed his creation, giving souls to the
Dwarves, and a place in creation.  They slept now, or hid, for their
time had passed, but some dwelt with him and the many Maiar, the
lesser Ainur, who assisted him.

        Many there were, working in the Great Forge of Aule, and
among them was Skuld, who still possessed the enthusiasm of youth. 
The body she had taken upon herself was young, that of a child
perhaps only twelve years of age.  But she was a hard worker and
brilliant.  The great computer, Yggsdrasil, made in memory of the
Two Trees whose light had once blessed the Shining Land, had been
her idea, and now she had a new one.  "I've figured out how to run
a phone line from here to the Earth!" she said to Aule.

      "And?"  He didn't mention he had already done this half a
century earlier; best to let Skuld feel proud of her accomplishment.  

      "Now we can try this idea I had."

       "What, making prank calls?"  Aule laughed. 

      "No.  You see, now the mortals will be able to call us!  It'll be a
technical support line for the soul!"

       Aule was sure Manwe would never go for this.  Ever.  Thus, he
nearly fainted when it was approved.


Prologue 3:
         Once upon a time, there was a little boy.  He was short, as is
standard with little boys, and dark haired, which is not so standard
everywhere, but was certainly the case in his homeland, Japan.  His
mother was dead, which certainly wasn't standard, but was all too
frequently the case.

         She had gone into a monster and never come out.  He had
known that she and his daddy had been doing something funny in the
big, weird house they lived in, but he hadn't realized it was going to
eat her.  Not until today.  It might have eaten his father too, by now;
he didn't know.  He was running, and screaming, and crying.  

          Worst of all, he was utterly lost.  He had never realized how
big their house was until today; he could run and run and run and
never get out of it.  Maybe there wasn't anything else, anywhere,
just more metal tunnels and endless doors and people in funny
clothing.  Finally, he saw something.  A phone.  Maybe he could get
help.  If he could remember any numbers.

         He had to pull it off the desk it sat on; it was too high up for
him.  The phone crashed to the floor, and for a moment, he was
terrified that he had broken it.  There was shouting far away, and for
a moment, he thought they were shouting at him.  That it was all his
fault.  Maybe it was his fault the monster had eaten his mommy. 
He'd tried to tell her he didn't like it, but she had gotten inside it
anyway.  And now she was gone.  

        Before, he had been too busy running to cry, but he cried now
as he wildly punched buttons on the phone and starting shouting into
it.  "Help me!  Help!  My mommy has been eaten by a monster!" 
There was some kind of emergency number.  He punched that in
too.  And the pizza place.  And anything else he could think of.  All
the numbers, over and over, as he howled into the phone and tears
ran down his cheeks. 

        It had happened a million times (okay, maybe not the eaten by a
monster part) in a million places, a human soul screaming in fear and
anger and despair at the universe in the face of all the cruelties with
which the Children of the One have grappled since the Marring of
the World, since it fell from its highest destiny.  Thus did Hurin cry
before the gates of Gondolin after his release from Angbad, and thus
did Turin cry in his last moments before he slew himself.  Thus did
Ozymandias gaze upon his own works and despair and Alexander
howl to the heavens when he saw there were no more worlds to
conquer.  A lone child fled an attack on his village millenia later, and
naked to the world, his image was seen by all.  Thus were the Jews
hauled off to the gas chambers, the Christians thrown to the lions,
the Moslems hacked and slewn by the Crusaders.  His loss was tiny
in comparison to those suffered by many before him and many after. 
And yet, his call was heard and answered in a visible way, while
many of those who cried out gained no relief.

          Perhaps it was destiny, the unseen hand of the One, for the
fate of all the Younger Children of the One rode upon this moment
(though not this moment alone).  Perhaps it was the power that lay
latent within the child, that urged his fingers to punch the right
numbers in their frenzy.  Perhaps it was but chance, the luck which
sometimes blesses fools and children.  The phone should have been
broken by its fall.  But it had landed on the boy instead of the
ground, and he was much softer.  He should have had to hit a nine
first to get an outside line, but when he picked it up off himself, he
had punched the nine in the process.  The call should have been
screened by an operator as all calls from the base to the outside
world supposedly were.  But the operator never questioned anything
the Commander did, and it came from his office, so of course it was
okay.  After all, who would break into the Commander's office and
play with his phone?  The call should have ended up somewhere
other than where it did, it was a medly of half remembered numbers
punched in by a small child who barely knew how to use a phone, let
alone any useful numbers.  If he had actually punched in any of them
correctly, he simply would have ended up talking to a friendly, but in
this case, utterly useless emergency operator (not to be confused
with the base operator).  He would have been given some soothing
words, which would have been of no use, and the operator would
have forgotten it all as soon as possible, for she wanted nothing to
do with whatever happened in the place Shinji called home.  

         This is what should have happened.  But as anyone older than
five can tell you, what should happen and what does happen are
rarely twin children.  

         Instead, a gentle voice answered the phone, and heard his cry
for help.  And she came.  Upon the wall, there was mounted a
mirror.  Its owner used it to cheat at cards once a week, but he also
used it to prepare himself to face the world, to make the final check
before leaving the stronghold known as his office to deal with
outside problems.  And thus, the final step was put into place, for
that was what the person at the other end of the line needed.  

          The mirror rippled, and a woman stepped forth, tall and
beautiful, with light brown hair in an elaborate style that probably
required several hours of maintenance a day, as it could not possibly
be entirely natural.  A blue tatoo upon her brow was her only
makeup, but she didn't need it.  Her complexion would send most
women (and men) into fits of envy and possibly berserker rage, for
she had never had a single pimple.  She wore a flowered dress, and a
blue headband wrapped round part of her hair, though it did little to
restrain her giant bangs.  In seconds, she crossed the room and knelt
by the crying boy, embracing him.  For a long time, he simply cried,
howling and whining and drooling a bit, burying his face in her flesh,
only coming up for air to enable him to cry again.  

         Slowly, the fear began to drain away to the point where he
could at least express what he wanted.  "My mommy...daddy's
monster ate her."

         "I know, little one.  I know.  He didn't mean for it to happen;
your daddy doesn't really know what he's doing.  None of the
people here do."  Her voice was sad and compassionate, her
embrace firm and comforting.  

          Slowly, he began to relax, almost against his will.  "I want my
mommy back!  Make it give her back!"

          She nodded quietly, and reached out with her senses, for she
was no human, though she looked it.  What she saw confirmed her
first impression.  It was wrong, wrong beyond measure, and beyond
her power to mend.  Directly.  Yet.  "The time is not yet come when
your mommy can be set free.  One day, you will be strong enough to
do it yourself, but I cannot."  Her own weakness angered her.  She
could not use her full power here.  Those who had made this place
had wrought well.  It reminded her of Utumno, though she had only
heard the tales of that place, and never entered it, not even in the
battles that ended the First Age, for she was a healer, a comforter, a
nurturer and teacher, not a warrior.  She could go forth to do battle
with them, but it was a fight she would not win.  Not at this time. 
But there were more ways to fight a war than with swords and
power unleashed nakedly. 

         "But I'm not strong," he cried.  "I'm weak.  I can't do it.  All I
can do is run away.  Daddy is right."  He clutched her with the
strength of pure terror.  "I can't do it by myself!"

         She stood, still holding him, the phone clattering to the ground
unheeded as he abandoned his grip on it to cling to her.  "You won't
be by yourself.  Do you want me to stay with you or do you want
me to take you to your daddy?"

         "No!  Not my daddy!  He'll feed you to the monster!"  The
boy began to cry.  "Please don't go.  Don't leave me like Mommy
did."

         She nodded quietly, her eyes closing.  The tatoo upon her
brow shone.  And then there was light.  

*************

         Alarms began to sound all over NERV.  "Warning!  Warning!"
blared a mechanical voice.  "Unplanned energy surge detected on
level 3.  Point of Origin, Commander Ikari's office."

         Commander Ikari's head snapped around.  He had been staring
at Unit01; no one had seen him move since the moment when it had
become obvious that his wife wasn't coming back from the
synchronization test.  His son was around...somewhere.  Why he had
brought his boy to the test, no one knew.  Where the boy had run off
to, no one knew either; they had been to busy trying to stave off
disaster to worry about the kid, who usually just got in the way,
anyway.  

          "What, an electrical spike?" he asked.

          Dr. Yuriko Akagi shook her head.  "No, it's..."  She stared at
the instrumentation, as did several of her technical asisstants.  The
way they were all bunching closer and closer together around Dr.
Akagi was not a good sign.  "Something is generating an AT-field in
your office."

         Commander Ikari simply stared.  He was in shock anyway, and
hearing something like this was somewhat like having someone tell
you that people were testing nuclear weapons in your cubicle while
you had gone out to lunch.  "What?"

         "It's getting stronger.  Stronger.  Amazing.  It seems to be
pulsing, almost as if it was a signal."

         Ten years, he thought.  We're supposed to have ten more
years.  They can't come now!  The EVAs aren't ready!   The world
isn't ready.  This wasn't part of the plan.  He needed the plan.  It
was the only way to atone for his past failures.  To make right what
had gone wrong.  He could feel it now.  He knew what it was.  If he
had not been so distracted, he might have felt it in time to do
something, but he could tell it was too late.  But not too late to clean
up the mess.  "Ready a security squad, Fuuyutsuki.  Dr. Akagi, shut
off those alarms before I get a headache.  Try to see where it might
be signalling."  He already was quite sure he knew exactly where it
was going to.

        They found nothing in Commander Ikari's office but Shinji
asleep on the floor with the phone pulled out of the wall on top of
him and a spilled glass of water by a now sparking power socket. 
Commander Ikari finally sent the boy off to be raised outside Tokyo-
3; he would only get in the way here.  The surge was written off as a
computer glitch.  And the boy was raised by a housekeeper. 
Amazingly, the first candidate interviewed had proven to be fully
acceptable.  Her records were impeccable, her references quite
good, and she seemed to take no interest in why the child was given
into her charge.

       Which was almost as far from the truth as it was possible to get.

*****************

Nirnaeth Arnoediad 
(Battle of Unnumbered Tears)

A crossover of several series.  But no Ranma.  I promise ^_-     
          
     
by John Biles
               
Chapter 1: Leaving the Nest

"In all the deeds of Melkor the Morgoth upon Arda, in his vast
works and in the deceits of his cunning, Sauron had a part, and was
only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and
not himself.  But in after years, he rose like a shadow of Morgoth
and a ghost of his malice, and walked behind him on the same
ruinous path into the Void."
 "The Valaquenta", _The Silmarillion_, J. R. R. Tolkien

******************

        "AAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!"  Shinji was screaming, which really
didn't surprise anyone, including himself.  It wasn't that he hadn't
ridden a motorcycle before.  It was that he had never driven one, not
even one made by his guardians before.  He wasn't supposed to be
riding this one, but curiousity had finally overwhelmed him.  He was
sure he was ready.

        Of course not.  Instead, he was zooming right towards what
was most certainly a stone wall and quite likely a source of massive
quantities of pain.  Perhaps doing this in the middle of the night so
his 'parents' wouldn't notice what he was up to hadn't been the best
of ideas.  Perhaps not putting on a helmet because he couldn't find it
in the dark hadn't been a good idea either.  In fact, perhaps the
whole thing was a mistake.  But it was too late to turn back. 
Hopefully, it wouldn't be too late to turn aside, though.  

          They found him face down in the dirt, the new motorcycle a
mangled mess.  Only his pride was hurt, although from the way his
foster-father carried on, you would have thought it was the end of
the world.  "SHINJI!  WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"  Keiichi began
to pull his hair, then to bang his head against a handy tree.  "My
bike!  My poor child is dead!"

         Shinji crumpled up in a little ball.  "I...I didn't mean to...I
just..."  It had been entirely stupid, and he didn't even understand
why he did it.  Usually, he was the best child a parent could want,
but sometimes, he got insane impulses, often self-destructive or
ridiculously dangerous, and then he would do something stupid.  He
sometimes thought it must be a reaction to something that happened
when he was little, but he had no idea what could have caused it. 
Not being sent away by his father; Shinji barely remembered the
man, who had never come to visit him once in all the ten years in
which Belldandy and her husband Keiichi had taken care of him.

          It seemed to be getting worse of late, though his 'parents'
were quite sure it was just the normal insanity that came with
becoming a teenager.  He wasn't quite so sure.  But whatever the
cause, he always regretted it afterwards.  

          His 'mother' was calmer.  "Shinji, you could have just asked,
you know."

         "I just...I..."  He stared at the ground.  "I'm sorry."

         She helped him up while Keiichi began to try to tend to the
wounded beast, trying to determine if it would have to be put down
or could be healed.  "I'm just glad you weren't hurt.  Just don't do it
again."

        There was little danger of that.

***********

        "Why does he do that?"  Keiichi said as he stepped out of the
bathroom.  He had spent the last two hours fixing as much of the
damage as he could; he should have gone to bed, but he couldn't
just leave the poor thing lying wounded like it had been.  

        "Some of it is just the sort of thing we all do when we're
young.  And the rest..."  Belldandy sighed.  "He may not remember
his mother being 'eaten', but deep down he knows.  And he thinks
it's his fault because he ran away.  So he tries to confront his fears,
even if he can't handle the confrontation, and then..."

        "I spend hours fixing the mess."  He kissed his wife on the
cheek.  "We should be asleep."

        "It begins tomorrow," she said quietly.

          "Yeah, summer is over, and he goes back to school.  He'll
probably get more..."  Keiichi usually took a while to catch his
wife's mood, but now he understood.  "You mean something
besides school."

         "Shinji's father will call for him tomorrow.  And we must send
him.  I got the message while I was sleeping.  We must pack.  It's
time for us to move."

         "..."

         "I must go with him, Keiichi.  He will need me.  This is the
task for which I was sent.  But I want you to come with me.  I can
live without you if I must, but...I don't want to.  I need you, Keiichi. 
I will do my duty; I must do it.  But I hope..."  She hesitated, fearing
that all her years of joy would end in this moment.  "I told you this
when we...when we wed.  I did not know the day, but I knew it
would come.  Will you come with me to share the joy and the pain?"

         "Of course I will," he said.  He could do no less for her in
return for all the things she had done for him, the joy she had
brought into his life.  They had sworn to share the joys and pains of
life, to do battle with its hardships side by side.  And he was a man
who kept his promises.  

         As they walked down the hall to their bedroom, she absorbed
every detail of her surroundings, branding it into her memory.  She
knew it would be long, if ever, before she returned.

***********