Chapter 18: Ahh, Kiyone

"Ok," Kiyone was saying evenly, halting as she was passing through and under the Torii. "Now repeat it back to me."

"No touching, no button pressing, no lever throwing." Mihoshi sighed, taking the final step up. "No cable disconnecting, no tying or untying for that matter." She continued after pausing beneath the Torii's arch, reciting in a sing song voice complete with rocking her head back and forth in time with the meter of her words. "And if I see anything in my way higher than a five yen coin, for god sake! Walk around it!"

"And?" Kiyone asked smiling expectantly, holding up a finger.

"Don't bother the film crew." Mihoshi finished flatly dejected.

"Very good!" Kiyone lilted. Producing and placing a cookie into Mihoshi's mouth while patting her on the head.

"This is really humiliating you know!" Miho whined.

"Awww!" Key smiled tightly, administering a firm final pat to her partner's cheek. "Lump it!"

Mihoshi only response was to trail despondently in Key's wake, quietly crunching as Kiyone walked over to where Todd and Tenchi were. The two's progress followed with intense interest as they passed where Yuba crouched next to Yoshi, now clutching a silver reflector in a sudden death grip.

"Who the fuck are they?" She rasped loudly.

"I have no idea." Yoshi sobbed, eying the pair of 'newcomers' sadly. "But we just shot to minus ten on the dog-o-meter!"

A few feet away, Michele had been helping Tony unpack and arranged his lenses over the last ten minutes, smiling fondly every time he would moan about the light, temperature, or yet again the absence of blossoms.

"Always the perfectionist!" Michele mused, taking genuine pleasure working with him as always. Time was rumors used to buzz that the two of them were more than just 'professionally' connected. Unfortunately, it simply wasn't true. Much as she respected the man, they were too similar to ever 'get along' in that fashion! Musing over the past and its enviable regrets, Michele raised a just calibrated camera to her eye. The slight melancholy, which had settled departing the second Michele, gazed through the viewfinder, lowering the camera to get a better view.

"Tony?" She asked urgently after a moment of blinking and gaping at what she saw. "Stop staring at terracotta and turn around!"

"I wonder if this is far enough back?" Mihoshi wondered aloud, having stopped at a few yards past the main arch. Privately thinking how much she hated the way Kiyone was treating her. "All these people and no one to talk to!" She muttered darkly.

All right, maybe she had brought some of it on herself, maybe there where times she would get excited and her brain would just switch off! She never denied it! However, she had always managed when it really counted! 'Grace under pressure' Mihoshi seemed to remember, or was that just the earth term? Whatever, the point was she had gotten along fine in the couple of years or so before key had managed to track her back down here! This was just another in a long series of Kiyone being over protective! Mihoshi sighed, wondering also if maybe she should just go home? The super wild action hour, was on in a couple of minutes anyway. Glancing toward the stairs, she almost took a step their direction.

"No!" She fumed after a moment of thought, almost pouting. "Screw it! I'm staying right here!" That important decision made, Mihoshi drew herself up regally. "And if anybody talks to me!" She continued aloud. "I certainly won't ignore them! It would be rude! Besides, Kiyone's treating me like I'm a nuclear bomb!"

"Well," came a woman's voice to her left. "You certainly are devastating enough!" Mihoshi turned carefully, taking in the two people standing there, staring at her. "My god Tony!" Some older woman Mihoshi didn't know was remarking. "Just look at those beautiful baby blues!"

"Huh?" Mihoshi asked a little stupidly, point at her own chest. "Are you talking to me?"

An older man with pleasantly rugged features came towards her suddenly, grasping her hand in a firm but not unpleasant grip.

"Please grant an old man's prayers!" Tony smiled, completely enchanted. "And tell me that's a real tan!"

"Hey Masaki!" Kiyone said huskily striding up. "How's it hanging?" Clad in half top and shorts, she presented an awesome sight in the crisp morning air, wringing looks of undisguised lust from Todd and unabridged hatred from all the assemble girls. Oblivious, Kiyone unconsciously applied further pressure to the group when she assumed a 'parade rest' position in front of Tenchi.

"Sorry to barge in." Key smiled. "But I missed you this morning! I just wanted to make sure you remembered our little get together this afternoon?"

"I won't forget." He said exasperatedly. "Do I ever forget Key?"

"I guess, I forgot." She answered with a grin, which faded when Kiyone suddenly became aware of breathing? Apparently labored and to her immediate left. Glancing that way, a young man was staring, wide eyed, slightly opened-mouthed. Todd was certain his eyes were sticking so far out of his head he was in danger of getting dust behind them.

"What a babe!" He mouthed quietly.

"Not the most intelligent looking specimen." Key thought, after a moment's observation.

"So Tench?" She asked indicating Todd with the jerk of an extended thumb. "What's with this guy?" That managed to jar Todd right out of his partial paralysis.

"Rodd Tunion!" He stammered holding out his hand. "I mean, Todd Runion!" He corrected, his voice noticeable deeper.

"Well, pleased to meet you both!" Kiyone answered with a smirk. "Put'er there!" She grabbed the offered hand and squeezed. "I'm Kiyone Makibi!"

"It's a pleasure!" He groaned between gritted teeth eye watering, prompting Key instantly relax her grip having forgot for a second being 'pumped' just coming from her morning run not to mention being from a two and a half gee world!

"How can she run around in shorts and a half top in this cold wind?" Yoshi wondered aloud. "I'm wearing coveralls and my nipples are freezing!"

"Her legs go all the way up to her damn neck!" Sara swore bitterly.

"Look at that white skin!" Mikito snarled. "She hasn't got a bump, wart, freckle or a scar!"

Whipping open her lock blade eying Kiyone's lustrous head of hair, Yuba summed up the groups feelings in her usual eloquent fashion.