Goddess In The Mirror

Gods, demons, and mortals alike often speak of a force that is so subtle and so incredibly powerful that neither the Ultimate Force, nor its demonic counterpart, the Infernal Power, could ever hope to stand up to it. This force, often mentioned and erroneously written off as non-existent, is known as Fate.

*

A demoness stood over the shoulder of the imp X'ggh'zphn. Xig, as the imp preferred to be called, was tapping away at a computer terminal in his cozy little office in the third circle of Hell. The demoness leaned over and whispered into his ear, allowing her blonde hair to wash tantalizingly over his back and the nape of his neck.

"Make me proud, X'ggh'zphn."

Xig noted with pleasure that the demoness had managed to pronounce his name without sounding like she was choking on a hairball--something which required either three extra tongue muscles or an extraordinary amount of oral control. Either way, he surmised, she was probably phenomenal in bed.

"Anything you say, Lady Mara," the imp cackled.

Xig was, for all intents and purposes, your average imp--at least in the areas of appearance and demeanor. He stood about three feet tall, and sat a good bit less than that. He was a deep red color, and his shiny, bald little head sported a pair of puny, dull horns. A hole in the back of the grungy little pair of pants he wore made room for a long, pointy tail, which was casually wrapped around Mara's posterior. There was one thing, and one thing only, that separated X'ggh'zphn from all the other imps in the Third Circle.

He was the only being in the vast streches of Hell that had ever managed to hack into the Yggdrasil System.

*

Keiichi Morisato was a quiet, unassuming college student of below-average stature and slender build. Living with the large and often obnoxious members of the Nekomi Auto Club, Keiichi was what some people would call a round peg in a square hole. Tonight was to be a night among nights--a night of peace and quiet, free from the din and ruckus that always seemed to follow his dorm-mates around. Tonight, Keiichi Morisato was going to sit back, relax, and try to get a little homework done.

He was peering lazily at his Chinese History textbook, when his stomach growled. It was a low, angry growl that started near the top of his intestines and made its way up into his abdomen, causing him to realize just how uncomfortably hungry he was getting. He made a show of checking the refrigerator, although deep down he already knew that all it contained was half a carton of spoiled milk, an empty jar of mayonnaise, and a pack of cold cuts that, legend had it, had been there since before the men of the Nekomi Auto Club had moved in seven years ago.

Wearily, he reached for the telephone book and started paging through it in search of a restaurant that would deliver food to his dorm. He finally settled on Happy Ming's Chinese Wok--not that he actually *liked* their food--it was more the fact that they were cheap, close, and fast. He picked up the telephone and dialed.

"Happy Ming's Chinese Wok. Can I help you?"

Keiichi scratched his head and looked at the menu. "Yeah, I'd like an order of Hunan beef and a side of fried dumplings, please."

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line, accompanied by the sound of numbers being punched into a cash register.

"All right, that comes to five hundred ninety Yen. We'll have it ready for you to pick up in fifteen minutes."

"Um, can you make that a delivery?"

"I'm sorry, sir," the voice replied, "but we don't deliver until after five PM."

"All right, well thanks anyway." For nothing, he thought to himself.

Keiichi clicked the hang-up button and dialed another restaurant. This time, a recorded voice politely informed him that they wouldn't be open for another three hours. Further attempts yielded similar results--one place had closed down, and another turned out to be the private residence of a man who was sick and tired of people calling his house and ordering ramen. Steeling himself for one final try, Keiichi Morisato dialed the only other take-out place he could think of.

"Goddess Help Line," said a soft, compassionate voice at the far side of the line.

Keiichi blinked. "Come again?"

"I'll be right there to give you a consultation." The woman on the other end-- whoever she was--hung up before Keiichi had a chance to reply. Peering suspiciously at the telephone, he hung up, leaned back against the wall, and let out a resigned sigh.

"This just isn't turning out to be my day," he mumbled to himself. Then his stereo exploded. Too shocked for words, Keiichi simply sat frozen against the wall, eyes bulging as a woman stepped out of the smoke from the remains for his hi-fi system.

"Dammit, that was uncomfortable," she said. "Couldn't you be like every other little college geek and leave a CD or two lying out in the open?"

In response, Keiichi twitched a bit.

As the smoke cleared, the form of a tall woman came into view. She was tall-- about six feet or so--and was possessed of a figure that would make most supermodels jealous. A cascade of wavy blonde hair framed striking facial features, including a strange pair of red markings on her forehead and two more below each cheek. She wore a pair of red high heels, a tight black skirt, and an ornate top that stopped just above her belly button and revealed a good bit more than it hid.

Hips swaying, the woman approached him, her high heels tapping quietly against the wooden floor. She then got down on one knee and leaned toward him, leaving him little to guess as to the contents of her shirt. Moving in ever closer so that her lips almost brushed against his ear, she whispered to him.

"Make a wish, little boy."

Keiichi swallowed hard. "Um, who are you?"

"I'm the goddess Mara," replied the woman. "I'm here to grant you anything you wish for."

"Anything? Like, anything at all?" he stammered.

"Anything you could possibly want," she breathed.

"Ya know," Keiichi said skeptically, "you don't sound like the woman I talked to on the telephone."

"I sound different in person. Now stop stalling and make your damn wish before I make it for you."

This couldn't be happening. This quite literally could not be happening. A beautiful woman pops out of his stereo--destroying it in the process--and claims to be a goddess, offering to grant him his deepest desire.

This had to be a joke. It'd be just like his obnoxious dorm mates to pull something like this, getting him all worked up and destroying the 30,000 Yen stereo that he had spent the better part of last summer saving up for. They were probably off in the next room with a video camera, taping his reaction to the whole thing.

Well, he would just have to do something they'll never expect. He'd go with it.

Keiichi sat up, a determined look in his eyes. "I want you," he said, "to be my girlfriend ... forever!"

"Granted," whispered the self-proclaimed goddess. She then stood up and took a few steps backward. Her expression grew distant for a moment, and then her back arched suddenly and two brilliant beams of light shot out of the marks in her forehead.

Keiichi was, to say the least, stunned. It didn't help that the woman was now floating two feet in the air, and his things were spinning around the room. He decided that, at this point, it might be in his best interest to pass out.

*

The last few days were a blur in the mind of Verdandi Asgard. She was an exchange student from Norway--she knew that much--but the details of the trip to Japan escaped her entirely. Dismissing the memory lapse as jet lag, she settled down to the task of finding the apartment her parents had arranged for her. Northwood Tower, room 319. She set her suitcase down on the sidewalk and paused to check the map that the Nekomi Tech housing office had supplied her with earlier.

The word "tower" suggested something a bit more grand than the squat, four- story brick building that the directions led her to. It seemed like a relatively nice place, though, at least from the outside. Shrugging, she pushed her way through the old wooden double-doors that led into the building.

The lobby was clean but inadequately lit, and smelled faintly of pine. A quick glance at the mailboxes along the far wall of the room told her that they had been expecting her arrival. Her name, typed in European letters on a piece of paper behind the two inch square glass window in box 319, was misspelled "Belldandy" Asgard. She considered asking to have it corrected, but decided against it; "Belldandy," although incorrect, just sounded *nice* for some reason, and comfortingly familiar as well.

Stopping briefly at the front desk, she presented her ID, filled out a few forms, and was given the key to her room. Heaving her suitcase up two flights of stairs, she found her room quickly, and was relieved to discover that it was pre- furnished.

Her apartment consisted of a living room, two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and an even smaller bathroom. While it wasn't large by any stretch, it was more than enough to accommodate her. Deciding on the bedroom with the window overlooking central campus, she opened her suitcase up on the bed and began to load her clothing into the old, varnished oak vanity that had been supplied with the residence.

She paused for a moment at her reflection in the mirror. Though she knew she had seen it thousands of times before, her appearance was strangely new to her for some reason. She was just over five feet tall, with long, straight brown hair. Her form and features were average; nothing was particularly wrong with the way she looked, but she certainly wasn't eye-catching either. Perhaps her only truly distinguishing feature was the softness and wisdom in her eyes. The expression on the face that looked back at her was one of someone who had lived many more than her nineteen years, and seen much more than her little hometown back in Norway. Despite this, though, she looked somehow lost, as if she was looking for something more, but had long since given up hope of finding it. Letting out a small sigh, she continued with the job of unpacking her belongings. Her first semester at Nekomi Tech would be starting tomorrow, and now was not a time for daydreaming.

*

Keiichi awoke to a warm sensation on his cheek and a faint smell of cinnamon. When he opened his eyes to look around, he found, to his horror that he was being breathed on by the sultry young woman who had somehow magically trashed his apartment some time earlier. She was straddling him, and her arms were wrapped loosely around his neck. He could almost swear he saw a pair of fangs sticking out behind her pouty, blood red lips. He tried vainly to scoot away from her, but the wall behind him prevented any form of escape.

"You're utterly pathetic," she intoned.

Keiichi just swallowed.

She tilted her head downward and looked up at him, eyes afire with unabashed, burning lust like none Keiichi had ever seen. "Now just hold still, little boy, and let me grant your wish."

As she closed in on him, Keiichi somehow managed to duck under her arms and slip from her grasp, then scramble away along the wall. She again moved toward him, but he got to his feet before she could reach him.

"All right, that's enough!" he exclaimed, bordering on nervous anger. "I don't know who put you up to this, but you need to leave, *right now.* This is a men- only dorm, and when my sempai see me in here with you, they'll throw us *both* out."

"Oh, but Keiichi," she said, grinning, "I *can't* leave you. You see, you wished for me to be here, and the 'ultimate force' has been set into motion to make sure that nothing will ever separate us." The way she said 'ultimate force' almost made it sound as if it were some sort of inside joke, although Keiichi himself had never heard the term before, so he was unsure of what to make of it.

Not that it mattered. At that moment--a most inopportune one, by Keiichi's reckoning--he could clearly make out the sound the front door opening, and the steady thumping noise of his many large dormmates trudging up the stairs. With a whoosh, the door flung open, revealing the massive Tamiya, and his pseudo- punk buddy, Ootaki, followed by most of the dorm's other residents.

"Morisato," Tamiya said sternly, "did I get any phone calls today?"

He stopped for a moment, his hard expression changing to one of shock as his eyes came to rest on Mara.

Keiichi grinned sheepishly under his dorm-mates' glares. "Uh, this, uhm, isn't what it looks like." His newfound companion, meanwhile, crept up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, blowing slightly into his ear.

"To the contrary, this is *exactly* what it looks like," she stated.

*

"My, that was entertaining," said Mara, surveying the small section of sidewalk upon which she and her charge were now seated.

Keiichi glowered at her. "You waltz into my room, blow up my stereo, and get me kicked out of the dorm, and then have the nerve to call it *entertaining*? I don't even *know* you!"

Grabbing him by the collar of his t-shirt, she drew him close to her face slowly, but with a surprising amount of strength. "Listen here, you little geek," she said in a tone just above a whisper. "You're five foot three, you're skinny, you're square, and you have the backbone of a snail. You're the absolute *epitome* of human inadequacy. You don't know how lucky you are that you had a chance to wish for me, because I assure you, no worthwhile woman would *ever* fall in love with you as you are. Now get up off your sorry little ass and find us a place to stay *this instant*, or there's gonna be hell to pay!"

Keiichi blinked, biting his lower lip as she let him go. Drawing in a shaky breath, he rubbed his eyes for a moment and then stood slowly and shivered in the cool evening breeze. "Well," he said languidly, "I guess I'll check the classifieds. Maybe we can get a sublet or something."

Depositing the last of his change in a nearby newspaper machine, he purchased a copy of the NIT Times and opened it up to the classifieds section. The vast majority of the available rooms, he noted, were well out of his price range.

"Uh, Mara?" he ventured.

"What?" she said shortly.

"Do you have any money you could pitch in for rent?"

"Are you some kind of moron or something? What the hell would a goddess need money for?"

Keiichi sighed, checking the ads one more time. The only one he could even remotely afford was a room up on the third floor of the Northwood building. The ad was worded urgently, and ended with "Reply ASAP." The telephone number listed was a long-distance one, implying that whoever was renting the apartment had already left. He knocked on the door of his former dormitory, was grudgingly admitted back inside so that he could use the telephone.

*

"Hello?" answered a worn, hoarse voice on the far end of the line.

"Hi, this is Keiichi Morisato calling about the sublet ad you ran in today's paper. Is Makoto Fujiyama there, please?"

"This is."

"Is the apartment still available?"

"Yeah," said the voice, "you're the first one to call about it."

"How soon could we move in?"

"I suppose you could probably move in tonight if you wanted. Nobody's using the place right now."

Keiichi breathed a sigh of relief. "Where should I pick up the key?"

"They've got it at the front desk over at Northwood Tower. I'll call ahead and let them know you're coming ... you'll probably have to pay a month ahead for it, if that's all right."

"Yeah, I can do that. Listen, I have a question for you, if you don't mind me asking..."

"Sure, go ahead."

"Your ad seemed kind of urgent, like you really wanted to get out of there ... there's nothing wrong with the apartment, is there?"

"Oh, no, the apartment's just fine. It's kind of a family emergency thing."

Keiichi winced. "Oh, jeez, I'm sorry."

Makoto Fuji sighed. "Don't sweat it. Hopefully things will improve. I'm just glad a found a sublet ... I wouldn't want to have to pay full price for a place I'm not gonna be staying in."

Keiichi nodded. "Okay. Well, unless there's something else I need to know, I'll let you go so I can get started moving in."

"Nothing I can think of," Makoto replied.

"Anyway, thanks. I really appreciate this."

"It's no problem." Keiichi set the telephone back on its hook and sighed again. He had lucked out, certainly, but the guy on the other end of the line hadn't sounded too well; Keiichi was a bit uncomfortable with the idea of succeeding at the cost of another person's welfare.

He stopped to thank his former dormmates and then went back outside. The goddess Mara was standing on the sidewalk beside his luggage, tapping her foot impatiently. She looked angry, certainly, but she was also, as Keiichi noted before, breathtakingly gorgeous. "I *am* lucky to be with this girl," he thought to himself.

"Well?" She fixed her gaze upon him, her tone demanding.

He nodded. "Yeah, we got a place. 320 Northwood Tower ... we can move in tonight."

"Good. I was beginning to think you were going to leave me out in the cold overnight. I wouldn't put that past someone like you. Now let's get moving."

Too tired to object to her accusation, Keiichi picked up his two suitcases--Mara offered no help--and started toward Northwood tower, which, fortunately, was only half a block away. When they arrived there a few minutes later, Keiichi noted that the lobby was a bit dark, but not particularly dirty or run-down.

"Are you Keiichi Morisato?" asked the girl at the front desk, when he entered with his baggage.

"Yeah, that's me." He set his suitcases down by the wall and approached the front desk.

"Makoto Fujiyama just called about you a few minutes ago," said the girl. "I've got a couple forms for you to fill out ... and I'll need a down-payment of twenty thousand yen before I can give you your key."

Keiichi cringed at the figure, which was all of this month's money and then some. Grudgingly, he produced a checkbook and signed away the painfully large quantity of money she had requested, and then went about filling out the apartment contract.

"So, you're moving into Makoto's place?" the girl asked.

Keiichi glanced up and nodded.

"Poor guy," she said, shaking her head.

"Why, what happened to him?"

"Apparently his dad's cancer got worse all of a sudden. He went home because they're not sure whether he's going to make it, and he wanted to be there while his he's in the hospital."

Keiichi blanched. "That's awful."

"Tell me about it," the receptionist replied.

"Get a move on, little boy," said Mara's voice from behind him. "I'd like to be able to get to sleep some time before next week."

Keiichi shook his head sadly and scribbled his signature on the contract. The receptionist, noting Mara's rather forceful prodding, went and got Keiichi his key without making further conversation. He took it, thanking her, and then began the arduous process of lugging two heavy suitcases up the stairs.

*

Keiichi awoke the following morning feeling pretty sore. Mara had insisted on staying in the apartment's single furnished bedroom, and Keiichi had been forced to spend the night sleeping on the couch, which was too short for even someone of his limited stature to sleep comfortably. A hot bath took care of most of the cramps, but he still had not slept very well, so it was with a certain measure of grogginess that he poured himself a bowl of cold cereal and a cup of coffee and then gathered his textbooks. Mara was still asleep, and he deemed it imprudent to wake her--yesterday had been a long day, especially since she had granted a wish and all; she probably needed her sleep.

He stepped out his door into the hallway just in time to nearly bump into a girl locking the door to the room immediately across from his own. She was slightly taller than him, and she had long, straight brown hair.

"Oh, hi!" she said, turning around upon hearing him come out. "I'm your new neighbor."

Keiichi pulled the door shut behind him. "No kidding! I was about to say the same thing to you. You see, I just moved in here last night."

"Wow, that's great! I just got in yesterday myself."

Her appearance was entirely unremarkable, save for her soft, innocent blue eyes. Her voice was accented slightly, and she appeared to be of European descent.

She was ... familiar, somehow.

Keiichi bowed slightly. "I'm Keiichi Morisato. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Verdandi Asgard," she replied, returning his bow. "The pleasure is mine."

The two of them made idle conversation as they headed downstairs to their classes. Verdandi, he found out, was an exchange student from Norway, living alone in her apartment and studying advanced Japanese at NIT. They spoke until they parted ways for their respective lectures; and somehow, just speaking to her made the stress of the last few days seem to melt away.

If he wasn't already attached to Mara, he might have considered asking her out-- but then, what would a nice girl like her want with a guy like him?

*

Keiichi flopped down on the couch, exhausted. A boring calculus lecture followed by a particularly difficult thermodynamics test had left him feeling drained. He had just taken an idle sip from the can of Coke he had bought on campus, when a knock at the door caught his attention.

Grumbling, he stood up and went over to answer it.

"Megumi!?" he asked, blinking in surprise at his sister's unexpected arrival.

"Hi there, Kei!" Megumi, cheerful as always, was carrying a small suitcase of her own, as well as a brown envelope.

He stood aside and ushered her into the apartment. "How'd you find the place?" he asked. "I just got here yesterday."

"I stopped by your old dorm. The guys said you'd moved to Northwood, so I asked about you down at the front desk. The woman down there said there was a *girl* with you," she added, winking at him conspiratorially. Keiichi gulped.

"Oh, don't worry, Kei. I won't tell mom and dad."

"Please don't."

"Anyway, the reason I'm here ... you two wouldn't happen to have room for one more, would you?"

"Well, we--"

"There's barely enough room here as it is," Mara interrupted, standing in the bedroom doorway.

"Oh!" Keiichi turned around. "Megumi, this is Mara. Mara, Megumi."

"Nice to meet you, Mara." Megumi inclined her head in greeting.

"Sure, kid."

"Wow, Kei," she whispered, "Mara's really pretty." Kind of a bitch though, she thought to herself.

Keiichi nodded. "Hey, listen Meg. Since you can't room here, you might try the room across the hall. The girl there's an exchange student from Norway, and she's living alone at the moment. She might want a roommate. I'll introduce you to her if you'd like."

"Sounds like a plan."

Mara crossed her arms. "While you're at it, why not introduce me as well? I'm curious about this girl."

"Uh, sure, I'd be glad to."

A few minutes later, once Megumi had gotten a bite to eat after her trip, the three of them went across the hall to Verdandi's apartment. The Norwegian girl answered the door politely, and seemed genuinely pleased to see Keiichi again. Mara edged in closer to Keiichi when the door opened, and put her arm around him almost covetously.

Verdandi, it seemed, was all smiles. "Oh my, what a nice surprise! Come in, all of you. I've got some green tea on the stove, if you'd like."

"That'd be great," Megumi replied. "I'm Kei's sister Megumi, by the way ... and that's his girlfriend, Mara."

Mara was still clinging to Keiichi and wearing a haughty expression on her face, which irritated Megumi for some reason that she couldn't quite place. Verdandi seemed to pay it no mind, though, inviting them to have a seat at the table as she poured their tea. She passed a cup to each of them, and then took a seat herself.

"Wow," said Keiichi, taking a sip from his cup. "This is excellent."

She smiled. "Thank you. I bought the leaves at the little tea shop down the street."

"Midori's?"

Verdandi nodded. "That's the one."

"I like to go there myself every once in a while. If you get a chance, they've got a great Chinese blend you should try."

"But we didn't come here just to make smalltalk," Mara interrupted. "I'd hate to waste too much of your time ... I believe Keiichi and Megumi have a question for you, Verdandi."

"Oh, yeah," said Keiichi. "You mentioned this morning that you weren't living with anybody right now ... and my sister here is looking for a roommate. I know this is asking a lot, so don't agree unless you're really all right with it ... but would you maybe be willing to room with her?"

Verdandi's eyes lit up at this. "That would be great, actually! I'm on kind of a tight budget ... any way I could share expenses with someone would really help me out."

"It's settled, then!" said Mara, clapping her hands together. "Keiichi and I will leave the two of you alone so you can work out the details, and we'll bring Megumi's things over later. C'mon, my darling. Time to go back home."

Leaving her tea mostly full, Mara took hold of Keiichi's arm and tugged insistently. Keiichi looked plaintively at Megumi and Verdandi, shrugging in apology and then draining the remainder of his own tea so as not to be rude and leave a full glass. It was a bit hot, and it burned slightly as it went down.

"Uh, well, I guess we'll see the two of you later. Thanks Verdandi!" He stood up, at Mara's urging, and gave them a quick bow.

"Of course! Feel free to come by any time."

Mara then stepped out of the apartment with Keiichi in tow, and closed the door behind them.

"Um, anyway," said Megumi finally, "I really appreciate this ... how do you want to work this out?"

*

What's wrong with me?

I still can't remember the trip out here ... in fact, I can't even picture my parents' faces or remember any of my friends from back home. Even the face looking back at me in the mirror seems strange, like I should be someone else. Maybe I'm going crazy or something.

Oh well. Megumi seems nice enough, at least. She seems like someone who would make a good sister for Keiichi. Kind of outspoken, but very good at heart-- and she's very protective of her brother.

Keiichi ... where have I seen you before? Your face is more familiar to me than my own, and yet I can't place it for some reason. And Mara. Who are you? You make me uneasy, and I have no idea why. Are you right for Keiichi? Is he happy being with you?

Maybe I just worry too much, but something about this whole thing just isn't right.

Calm down, Verdandi. You're just jet lagged--that's all.

To Be Continued - Chapter 2: Days Like this