Disclaimers: Love Hina, and all associated characters, settings, etc. belong to Ken Akamatsu. Likewise, X-Men: Evolution is the property of Marvel Comics, and Stan Lee.
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CHAPTER ONE
=====================================================
"Attention, Japan Air Lines Flight *Crackle, crackle*, bound for JFK International Airport is now boarding. Would all passengers for JAL Flight *Screech buzz* please make their way to Terminal Two, thank you."
Narita International Airport is the second-busiest passenger airport in Japan. Every year, more than 30 million people pass through it on their way to parts unknown. Today, in the midst of all this hustle and bustle, a small group of very unusual people were making their way to Terminal Two.
At first glance, most of the small group weren't all that interesting: mostly young women and a man in casual attire, who was pushing a trolley with a couple of cases. If you were to look again, however, you'd see that the group had with them a turtle in a carrycase and a flying cat. Furthermore, two of the women, who were leaning into the man, looked so alike that they seemed to be clones, even wearing the same outfit (a green, long-sleeved blouse and skirt, with a brown smock over them).
Soon the group had arrived at the Terminal, and the two clone-like women peeled themselves from the man, who chuckled nervously as he recieved the evil eye from several men around him, as well as from a raven-haired woman in a kendo training gi and a brunette in a turtleneck sweater.
"Oh my, Kei-kun, this is so exciting! Our baby girl, going to America!" Mutsumi Urashima (nee Otohime) gushed happily. Keitaro smiled, and turned to the youngest of the group.
"Well Tomo-chan, this is it. Have a safe flight, and call us when you get there, ok-blark!" He said, as he was suddenly shoved aside by a blonde European girl.
"Hey, doofus! Quit hoggin' time with Tomoko, me an' Su got something to give her!" Sarah MacDougal growled, before she and the tanned girl handed over a box.
"It's my newest Mecha-Tama, I created it specially for you!" Kaolla Su, Princess of the island nation of MolMol, and mad scientist extraordinaire, declared. As one, the entire group backed away, particularly Keitaro; he knew only too well the power and danger that the Mecha-Tama contained. One by one, the group wished Tomoko good luck, before the girl began to push the trolley to the check-in counter.
"Say, how long d'y'all think it'll be before she faints again?" One of the older women in the group, who had ash blonde hair and was wearing a tight sleeveless sweater asked. Mutsumi and Keitaro both gave her a stern look.
"Sorry, too tasteless?" Mitsune Konno asked, having the grace to blush slightly.
=====================================================
Back in Hinata, in the teashop at the foot of the hill leading up to the Hinata Apartments, a stately middle-aged woman lit up a cigarette and exhaled as she looked up into the sky. Haruka Urashima, Keitaro's aunt by adoption, was taking a break from her work. Sighing contentedly, she reflected back over the years that she'd lived in Hinata, particularly from the time that her nephew arrived.
"You haven't had it easy, have you Keitaro?" she asked the open air, reflecting on that time, so many years ago, when he'd arived at Grandma Hina's instruction (God rest her soul), to find that her lodge had been turned into an all-girls dormitory.
"Heh, I wonder what would have happened if Mutsumi hadn't been there with you from the start? Those strange abilities of hers certainly helped everyone here keep a level head..."
Haruka then reflected further, on the frail Okinawan girl who had captured her nephew's heart so many years ago. Despite having spent years here in Hinata, she'd kept her eye on the international news, and she knew the signs. Mutsumi was one of those so-called 'Mutants' that the Americans were so worked up about. Once she'd worked that out, it didn't suprise her in the least to discover that Keitaro was one as well. "I wonder if that was why you both clicked so quickly? Kindred spirits and all that." Haruka smiled.
She then chuckled softly, remembering the stunned expressions on Naru and Kitsune's faces as they discovered that the goofball that they'd been beating on not only was a second year Tokyo U student, but engaged as well.
It hadn't take long for either of them to work into the other tenants' hearts, Keitaro by his dogged determination and endless spirit, and Mutsumi by her limitless kindness and sheer love-love power.
Even Motoko, who'd had that complex against men, had eventually become a close friend to Keitaro, and after she had graduated from Tokyo U's law programme, had set up a partnership with Keitaro with a publishing firm. She was quite the popular romance novelist, although under a penname, along with Kitsune.
There was a chime as the door opened and Haruka stubbed out her cigarette and looked inside. Sure enough, it was Shirai Kimiaki, one of Keitaro's friends, and a less-than-secret admirer of herself. Haruka sighed, "Oh, brother..." and walked back inside.
=====================================================
Bayview, New York, was one of hundreds of bedroom communities that had grown up around the major U.S. metropoli in the aftermath of the Second World War. It has all the usual facilities of such towns: an elementary school, a high school, a shopping mall, and so on. What made Bayview different, though, was a large brownstone Dutch-style manor house outside town, which rejoiced under the title of The Xavier Institute for Gifted Youths. The Institute was owned by a Professor Charles Xavier, a genius in the scientific fields, particularly that of genetics, and officially was a form of exclusive boarding school, honing the minds and bodies of its students in preperation for joining the adult world.
Unofficially... It was the home base for a vigilante group of teenage mutant superheroes called the "X-Men", who fought to protect their fellows, human and mutant alike, from the fear and anger of the closed-minded. Every student and instructor of the Institute was a Mutant of some form, from the relatively mundane, such as Kathryn "Kitty" Pryde, a young Jewish teenager who could phase through solid matter as if it was thin air; to the bizarre, such as Evan Daniels, an African-American teen who could create objects out of bone; to the downright freaky, as in the case of Kurt Wagner, a German boy who was cursed with a fuzzy, blue feline appearance and the ability to teleport almost instantly from one spot to another.
In his office on this particular evening, Professor Charles Xavier was attending to an administrative matter when a soft chiming sound roused him from his work.
DISCOVERY: MUTANT SIGNATURES, IDENTITIES CONFIRMED, AND MATCHED TO ARCHIVE FILES.'
'Hmmm... I wonder who that could be...?' Professor Xavier wondered, rolling his wheelchair to the panel that hid the entrance to the marvellous super-computer called Cerebro. Opening the panel, he wheeled himself to the interface for the computer and logged himself in.
"FIRST MUTANT IDENTIFIED.
NAME: KEITARO URASHIMA.
RESIDENCE: HINATA SPRINGS DORMITORY, HINATA CITY, KANAGAWA PREFACTURE, TOKYO, JAPAN.
LOCATION: NARITA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, TOKYO, JAPAN
AGE: 38
POWERS: HIGH RESISTANCE TO PHYSICAL INJURY."
Xavier nodded. Keitaro would have made a fine addition to the X-Men, if it had not been for the promise to get into Tokyo University that he lived by.
"SECOND MUTANT IDENTIFIED. FILE BEING UPDATED... UPDATES COMPLETE.
NAME: MUTSUMI URASHIMA (FORMERLY MUTSUMI OTOHIME)
RESIDENCE: HINATA SPRINGS DORMITORY, HINATA CITY, KANAGAWA PREFACTURE, TOKYO, JAPAN.
LOCATION: NARITA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, TOKYO, JAPAN
AGE: 38
POWERS: TELE-EMPATHY."
Xavier smiled; he'd met the frail Okinawan girl once, when he'd been travelling Japan on a lecture tour, and even he'd been charmed by her good nature and kind-heartedness. In his own way, he gave full approval for the two with a smile and a nod.
Looking at the web files on the two, Charles was pleasantly suprised to discover a birth certificate had been made out for a 'Tomoko Urashima', dated about 16 years previously. Looking further on this, he discovered that a Tomoko Urashima was registered as being a Foreign Exchange Student at Bayview High School. Looking at the files, he chuckled. Tomoko was the splitting image of her mother, aside from the grey/brown eyes (a trait of the Urashima clan, he recalled). She was going to make an impression when she arrived, that was certain.
With a smile, Xavier logged out of Cerebro and wheeled himself back into his office. When Ororo Munroe, one of the instructors at the Institute, otherwise known as the mutant 'Storm' came in a few minutes later, she raised her eyebrow at the sight of the Professor cheerfully humming a Japanese pop song as he worked. "You seem to be in a good mood tonight, Charles."
"Ororo, I think we may be gaining a new student here at the Institute very soon..." he replied, before telling her about the imminent arrival to Bayview of Tomoko Urashima. "And even if she does not have the Gift, I feel that she could still be a large part of the lives of the students..."
Ororo looked at the photograph of the slender, graceful Japanese woman, and chuckled. "I think that she'll have the boys wrapped around her finger in moments..." she agreed.
======================================================
Several miles away, in a nice part of Bayview, the Principal of the High School, a stern, no-nonsense brunette named Raven Darkholme, entered her apartment with a groan. If there was one thing she hated more than anything, it was meetings with her staff members, especially that Union Rep.... With a dark mutter, she began to change, her brown hair turning ruby red, and her skin navy blue. Raven Darkholme, who also went by the codename 'Mystique', walked to her fridge to microwave some dinner. She'd just pulled some microwave lasagna out of the freezer when-
"Mystique." a deep, cultured man's voice intoned. She spun around, and saw a figure in the shadows, dressed in red armour with purple trimming.
'Magneto? What's he doing here?' Raven thought, slightly panicked.
"Sir? Why are you here?"
Magneto stepped forward into the light, revealing a long, thin face with eyes which had seen too much darkness in this world. In those eyes, she could see for a moment a young Erik Magnus Lensherr being marched, at gunpoint, into the concentration camps of Hitler's Nazi Germany. She shook her head to focus on what Magneto was saying now.
"An opportunity has come our way, Mystique. The daughter of two powerful Japanese clans is coming to study at Bayview. I want you to.... persuade her, and her family, to support our cause, through whatever means you choose."
"Yes, sir..." Mystique replied nervously as Magneto dropped a file onto her table and vanished as he always did. Slowly, she reached out, and opened the file with trepidation.
"Good God.... The Urashima and the Otohime clans..." she mumbled. She'd seen all to well the power of the two. For a moment her appearance rippled, and she turned into a pale Japanese woman with coal-black hair.
"Onii-chan...." she sighed, before reverting back to her "Raven Darkholme" mode. If the Otohime girl hadn't got in the way at the crucial moment, she would have caught Keitaro in a trap. As it was, she'd been rumbled by her and the girl she'd been impersonating (Keitaro's adopted sister Kanako). In the little time she'd masqueraded as Keitaro's mundane sister, even she'd come to see him as more than a mere asset to aquire away from Xavier, and more as a polite, charming young man.
======================================================
As Raven Darkholme considered the mysteries of Keitaro Urashima, and the residents of the Hinata Dorm went their seperate ways for their workdays, Tomoko Urashima snoozed gently, in the Business Class section. It was mainly for her health, as she could have had difficulties in the cramped Economy section. An angelic smile graced her lips as she dreamed of that day, so long ago...
======================================================
=====================================================
CHAPTER ONE
=====================================================
"Attention, Japan Air Lines Flight *Crackle, crackle*, bound for JFK International Airport is now boarding. Would all passengers for JAL Flight *Screech buzz* please make their way to Terminal Two, thank you."
Narita International Airport is the second-busiest passenger airport in Japan. Every year, more than 30 million people pass through it on their way to parts unknown. Today, in the midst of all this hustle and bustle, a small group of very unusual people were making their way to Terminal Two.
At first glance, most of the small group weren't all that interesting: mostly young women and a man in casual attire, who was pushing a trolley with a couple of cases. If you were to look again, however, you'd see that the group had with them a turtle in a carrycase and a flying cat. Furthermore, two of the women, who were leaning into the man, looked so alike that they seemed to be clones, even wearing the same outfit (a green, long-sleeved blouse and skirt, with a brown smock over them).
Soon the group had arrived at the Terminal, and the two clone-like women peeled themselves from the man, who chuckled nervously as he recieved the evil eye from several men around him, as well as from a raven-haired woman in a kendo training gi and a brunette in a turtleneck sweater.
"Oh my, Kei-kun, this is so exciting! Our baby girl, going to America!" Mutsumi Urashima (nee Otohime) gushed happily. Keitaro smiled, and turned to the youngest of the group.
"Well Tomo-chan, this is it. Have a safe flight, and call us when you get there, ok-blark!" He said, as he was suddenly shoved aside by a blonde European girl.
"Hey, doofus! Quit hoggin' time with Tomoko, me an' Su got something to give her!" Sarah MacDougal growled, before she and the tanned girl handed over a box.
"It's my newest Mecha-Tama, I created it specially for you!" Kaolla Su, Princess of the island nation of MolMol, and mad scientist extraordinaire, declared. As one, the entire group backed away, particularly Keitaro; he knew only too well the power and danger that the Mecha-Tama contained. One by one, the group wished Tomoko good luck, before the girl began to push the trolley to the check-in counter.
"Say, how long d'y'all think it'll be before she faints again?" One of the older women in the group, who had ash blonde hair and was wearing a tight sleeveless sweater asked. Mutsumi and Keitaro both gave her a stern look.
"Sorry, too tasteless?" Mitsune Konno asked, having the grace to blush slightly.
=====================================================
Back in Hinata, in the teashop at the foot of the hill leading up to the Hinata Apartments, a stately middle-aged woman lit up a cigarette and exhaled as she looked up into the sky. Haruka Urashima, Keitaro's aunt by adoption, was taking a break from her work. Sighing contentedly, she reflected back over the years that she'd lived in Hinata, particularly from the time that her nephew arrived.
"You haven't had it easy, have you Keitaro?" she asked the open air, reflecting on that time, so many years ago, when he'd arived at Grandma Hina's instruction (God rest her soul), to find that her lodge had been turned into an all-girls dormitory.
"Heh, I wonder what would have happened if Mutsumi hadn't been there with you from the start? Those strange abilities of hers certainly helped everyone here keep a level head..."
Haruka then reflected further, on the frail Okinawan girl who had captured her nephew's heart so many years ago. Despite having spent years here in Hinata, she'd kept her eye on the international news, and she knew the signs. Mutsumi was one of those so-called 'Mutants' that the Americans were so worked up about. Once she'd worked that out, it didn't suprise her in the least to discover that Keitaro was one as well. "I wonder if that was why you both clicked so quickly? Kindred spirits and all that." Haruka smiled.
She then chuckled softly, remembering the stunned expressions on Naru and Kitsune's faces as they discovered that the goofball that they'd been beating on not only was a second year Tokyo U student, but engaged as well.
It hadn't take long for either of them to work into the other tenants' hearts, Keitaro by his dogged determination and endless spirit, and Mutsumi by her limitless kindness and sheer love-love power.
Even Motoko, who'd had that complex against men, had eventually become a close friend to Keitaro, and after she had graduated from Tokyo U's law programme, had set up a partnership with Keitaro with a publishing firm. She was quite the popular romance novelist, although under a penname, along with Kitsune.
There was a chime as the door opened and Haruka stubbed out her cigarette and looked inside. Sure enough, it was Shirai Kimiaki, one of Keitaro's friends, and a less-than-secret admirer of herself. Haruka sighed, "Oh, brother..." and walked back inside.
=====================================================
Bayview, New York, was one of hundreds of bedroom communities that had grown up around the major U.S. metropoli in the aftermath of the Second World War. It has all the usual facilities of such towns: an elementary school, a high school, a shopping mall, and so on. What made Bayview different, though, was a large brownstone Dutch-style manor house outside town, which rejoiced under the title of The Xavier Institute for Gifted Youths. The Institute was owned by a Professor Charles Xavier, a genius in the scientific fields, particularly that of genetics, and officially was a form of exclusive boarding school, honing the minds and bodies of its students in preperation for joining the adult world.
Unofficially... It was the home base for a vigilante group of teenage mutant superheroes called the "X-Men", who fought to protect their fellows, human and mutant alike, from the fear and anger of the closed-minded. Every student and instructor of the Institute was a Mutant of some form, from the relatively mundane, such as Kathryn "Kitty" Pryde, a young Jewish teenager who could phase through solid matter as if it was thin air; to the bizarre, such as Evan Daniels, an African-American teen who could create objects out of bone; to the downright freaky, as in the case of Kurt Wagner, a German boy who was cursed with a fuzzy, blue feline appearance and the ability to teleport almost instantly from one spot to another.
In his office on this particular evening, Professor Charles Xavier was attending to an administrative matter when a soft chiming sound roused him from his work.
DISCOVERY: MUTANT SIGNATURES, IDENTITIES CONFIRMED, AND MATCHED TO ARCHIVE FILES.'
'Hmmm... I wonder who that could be...?' Professor Xavier wondered, rolling his wheelchair to the panel that hid the entrance to the marvellous super-computer called Cerebro. Opening the panel, he wheeled himself to the interface for the computer and logged himself in.
"FIRST MUTANT IDENTIFIED.
NAME: KEITARO URASHIMA.
RESIDENCE: HINATA SPRINGS DORMITORY, HINATA CITY, KANAGAWA PREFACTURE, TOKYO, JAPAN.
LOCATION: NARITA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, TOKYO, JAPAN
AGE: 38
POWERS: HIGH RESISTANCE TO PHYSICAL INJURY."
Xavier nodded. Keitaro would have made a fine addition to the X-Men, if it had not been for the promise to get into Tokyo University that he lived by.
"SECOND MUTANT IDENTIFIED. FILE BEING UPDATED... UPDATES COMPLETE.
NAME: MUTSUMI URASHIMA (FORMERLY MUTSUMI OTOHIME)
RESIDENCE: HINATA SPRINGS DORMITORY, HINATA CITY, KANAGAWA PREFACTURE, TOKYO, JAPAN.
LOCATION: NARITA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, TOKYO, JAPAN
AGE: 38
POWERS: TELE-EMPATHY."
Xavier smiled; he'd met the frail Okinawan girl once, when he'd been travelling Japan on a lecture tour, and even he'd been charmed by her good nature and kind-heartedness. In his own way, he gave full approval for the two with a smile and a nod.
Looking at the web files on the two, Charles was pleasantly suprised to discover a birth certificate had been made out for a 'Tomoko Urashima', dated about 16 years previously. Looking further on this, he discovered that a Tomoko Urashima was registered as being a Foreign Exchange Student at Bayview High School. Looking at the files, he chuckled. Tomoko was the splitting image of her mother, aside from the grey/brown eyes (a trait of the Urashima clan, he recalled). She was going to make an impression when she arrived, that was certain.
With a smile, Xavier logged out of Cerebro and wheeled himself back into his office. When Ororo Munroe, one of the instructors at the Institute, otherwise known as the mutant 'Storm' came in a few minutes later, she raised her eyebrow at the sight of the Professor cheerfully humming a Japanese pop song as he worked. "You seem to be in a good mood tonight, Charles."
"Ororo, I think we may be gaining a new student here at the Institute very soon..." he replied, before telling her about the imminent arrival to Bayview of Tomoko Urashima. "And even if she does not have the Gift, I feel that she could still be a large part of the lives of the students..."
Ororo looked at the photograph of the slender, graceful Japanese woman, and chuckled. "I think that she'll have the boys wrapped around her finger in moments..." she agreed.
======================================================
Several miles away, in a nice part of Bayview, the Principal of the High School, a stern, no-nonsense brunette named Raven Darkholme, entered her apartment with a groan. If there was one thing she hated more than anything, it was meetings with her staff members, especially that Union Rep.... With a dark mutter, she began to change, her brown hair turning ruby red, and her skin navy blue. Raven Darkholme, who also went by the codename 'Mystique', walked to her fridge to microwave some dinner. She'd just pulled some microwave lasagna out of the freezer when-
"Mystique." a deep, cultured man's voice intoned. She spun around, and saw a figure in the shadows, dressed in red armour with purple trimming.
'Magneto? What's he doing here?' Raven thought, slightly panicked.
"Sir? Why are you here?"
Magneto stepped forward into the light, revealing a long, thin face with eyes which had seen too much darkness in this world. In those eyes, she could see for a moment a young Erik Magnus Lensherr being marched, at gunpoint, into the concentration camps of Hitler's Nazi Germany. She shook her head to focus on what Magneto was saying now.
"An opportunity has come our way, Mystique. The daughter of two powerful Japanese clans is coming to study at Bayview. I want you to.... persuade her, and her family, to support our cause, through whatever means you choose."
"Yes, sir..." Mystique replied nervously as Magneto dropped a file onto her table and vanished as he always did. Slowly, she reached out, and opened the file with trepidation.
"Good God.... The Urashima and the Otohime clans..." she mumbled. She'd seen all to well the power of the two. For a moment her appearance rippled, and she turned into a pale Japanese woman with coal-black hair.
"Onii-chan...." she sighed, before reverting back to her "Raven Darkholme" mode. If the Otohime girl hadn't got in the way at the crucial moment, she would have caught Keitaro in a trap. As it was, she'd been rumbled by her and the girl she'd been impersonating (Keitaro's adopted sister Kanako). In the little time she'd masqueraded as Keitaro's mundane sister, even she'd come to see him as more than a mere asset to aquire away from Xavier, and more as a polite, charming young man.
======================================================
As Raven Darkholme considered the mysteries of Keitaro Urashima, and the residents of the Hinata Dorm went their seperate ways for their workdays, Tomoko Urashima snoozed gently, in the Business Class section. It was mainly for her health, as she could have had difficulties in the cramped Economy section. An angelic smile graced her lips as she dreamed of that day, so long ago...
======================================================