PROLOGUE:- One night, soon after their return from the Hinata Beach Café where they had just spent the summer, Keitaro had come home to find a beautifully exotic young woman dancing on the roof of the Hinata-Sou by the light of a full red moon.

Considering that she looked a lot like Su, he had asked the foreigner later if she knew who the mystery woman was. Not believing Su's answer, he had begun trying to study with Naru. Seeing as those two were the only other tenants at the Hinata-Sou that night, Su had hung around while she continued to try and convince Keitaro that she was indeed the woman he had seen on the roof. In the ensuing 'conversation', Su ended up latched onto Keitaro's back, the same way she does to Motoko, with Naru was glaring at them both while she tried to study. Realising that Naru was beginning to work herself up to taking a swing at him, Keitaro attempted to reason with Su.

"Okay stop. Stop, Su! Why don't you reserve the hanging off bit for Motoko, and Motoko only, huh?"

-GLOMP-

"AAHHHHH!"

Su rubbed her cheek against his vigorously. "OOOH, compared to Motoko, Keitaro, you feel so much better to hold on to. And your skin is so soft and nice."

Seeing him continue to struggle, she tried another tack. "Okay, how about this? Motoko's my true, true heart. So…you get to be my lover, Keitaro."

After a light pummelling from Naru when he didn't turn down her offer quickly enough, (like, before she even said it would have done nicely, thankyouverymuch!) the comment was forgotten, even after Su proved to him that she was indeed the woman he had seen dancing earlier in the night.

How hard could it be to forget that a young girl in his care turns into an older hottie under the light of a red moon, you ask? Even after she attempts to kiss you on the rooftop in her adult form?

Simple. It's Keitaro.

And with all the weird crap that happens to him on a weekly basis, it becomes easily understandable.

But, just because the incident had slipped from his mind, does not mean that it had been forgotten by others…

Red moons & Kanrinin's

By: Tezza1502

Disclaimer: 'Love Hina', the Manga and Anime, is owned and © by Ken Akamatsu, TOKYOPOP®, and their various affiliates. I personally make no claim to any type of ownership, other than the idea for this fan fiction story. So there! ; b

Notes: Hey there! Tezza here, once again bravely attempting to bring something fresh to the table. Or at least reheat some choice leftovers. Although, for this one I think I may have actually managed to break new ground. At least, I haven't seen anyone else ever attempt this idea. You'll see what I mean after the third chapter or so. Settle in and watch as I manage to begin a 'Love Hina' fic without Keitaro flying through the air! This fic will begin a few weeks after the above exchange between Keitaro, Su and Naru. (Book 5, Chapter 41, page 153 of the Manga) Which, if you remember, was after the 'Hinata Beach Café' affair, so things were rocky between Naru and Keitaro. Or rather, rockier than usual. Um, what else…

Oh yeah, I am assuming for this fic that Motoko doesn't know about Su's royal status or her homeland.

Chapter 1:- A NEW DIG (or, 'For heavens sake, be careful when you step, Seta!')

"Hey Part-timer, isn't this the life?" Toudai Professor Seta Noriyasu breathed in the morning air deeply as he stretched his limbs energetically to shake away the previous nights lethargy. Sleeping outdoors always got his archaeological juices flowing, even better than a big pot of black coffee or his erratic pursuit of Haruka.

Keitaro glared at his Sempai from under the wing of the 'borrowed' single prop sea-plane the Toudai professor had ploughed into the deserted island beach they were stuck on a few days before. He had decided to take up Seta's offer of going over a new site the energetic man had discovered recently after a particularly trying couple of weeks at the Hinata-Sou, where he is the Manager. For some reason, after they had returned from their summer working at the Hinata Beach Café, the girls under his care had been on an even shorter fuse than normal when it came to his accidents. Even Shinobu had snapped at him one day when Su had head-kicked him into a basket of freshly-laundered clothes, spreading them all over the floor.

So, feeling more hard done by than usual, he had jumped at the chance to escape for a week or two to an isolated island when Seta had shown up one day out of the blue. Despite only having worked for the man for a couple of months, it was a rare chance to do some fieldwork in an area that interested him.

Naru, of course, threw a fit when she found out. They were supposed to be studying for their next round of entrance exams. The ensuing violence only hardened his resolve to take a break from his duties as Kanrinin. So, leaving them in Haruka's care, he had departed with Seta for parts unknown.

However, in his rush to get away for a while, he had forgotten the fact that Seta was something of a disaster magnet. Even more so than himself.

"Hey dork! Make me breakfast!" A young, petulant voice came from the other side of the plane wreck. The follow up sandball to the back of his head ensured that he could not ignore her demand and go back to sleep.

'Why did he have to bring her?' Keitaro asked rhetorically as he dragged himself out of his sleeping bag and set about fulfilling the request. He knew that Sarah MacDougal was Seta's adopted daughter, and that the young girl did not see her father anywhere near enough to suit her since he had left her in Keitaro's care. However, he had really been looking forward to a stag trip. Secretly, he was sure that he was beginning to develop ovaries from spending so much time in the company of so many females.

Grumbling a reply to Sarah, he set about preparing a simple meal for the three of them, making sure to give her the larger portion. He had learnt over the past few mornings that if she started out the day with a full belly, she was less inclined to make trouble for him until she had finished digesting it, usually around mid-morning. And by the time she was feeling mischievous again, he and Seta were usually busy probing for signs of past inhabitants. Which meant that any pranks or tricks she felt like pulling while they were working was a no-no.

Oddly enough, it turns out that one of the few good habits Seta had managed to instil in his daughter was to respect the dig. He was disgustingly pliant to her whims most of the time. But when he was working, she knew better than to disturb him, or anyone with him. It was a facet of the young girl that Keitaro was surprised to learn about. Considering her behaviour at the Hinata-Sou, he had assumed that she didn't hold anything sacred.

"So where do you want to try today?" He called to his mentor as he prepared their meal.

"Dunno." Seta replied as he threw his cigarette butt away as he approached the cooking area. Keitaro had banned him from smoking around the food preparation area while he was in charge of the cooking . "Actually. I want to climb to the top of that extinct volcano and get a birds-eye view today." He pointed to the jagged plateau that dominated the entire island. "When I first found this place, it looked very promising considering how many small artefacts were lying around. But now…I dunno. I felt sure that we would have stumbled across something big by now!" He scratched the back of his head, looking vaguely like a kid who's just been told that he won't be getting that present he had been wanting for ages for his birthday.

Keitaro shrugged, expecting something like this. Seta was brilliant, in his own way. It's just that occasionally he let his enthusiasm get the better of his common sense. Normally, it would be annoying. But Keitaro's only expectation from this trip had been to get through a day or two without a case of unaggravated assault being perpetrated upon his person. Despite the occasional trip up from Sarah, it was going surprisingly well.

"Alright. I'll pack us a lunch to take with us." He said, eyeing off the peak critically. "I figure it'll take us most of the day to get up there and back to camp."

Seta nodded agreeably. "Make sure you pack the camera as well. You never know what we might miss with our eyes that'll leap off the screen instead." He said, referring to the digital camera and laptop that was a part of their inventory.

Keitaro mumbled an affirmative as he began dishing up breakfast.

"Wow! That took a lot longer than I thought it would." Seta said cheerfully as the trio reached the peak, a few hours later. Keitaro chose not to reply, seeing as he was busy collapsing into a heap and trying to catch his breath after lugging a backpack full of equipment up the steep incline. Seta had set a brisk pace, and he had struggled to keep up.

"Woah! You can see everything from up here!" Sarah exclaimed, hopping down from her perch on her fathers shoulders and racing to the cliffs-edge to get a better view. And what a view it was.

The island was shaped like a fat crescent. The three of them had set up camp on the southern point, mostly because that was the first thing Seta had hit with the plane when they'd arrived.

After catching his breath, Keitaro began paying attention to his surroundings again. Coming up beside the other two, he silently agreed that it was a great view. Walking carefully around the edge of the small plateau and taking it all in, he finally broke out the camera and a couple of binoculars. Handing one to Seta and the other to Sarah, he began taking photo's of the entire island with the intent of joining them up into one continuous picture on the computer later.

"So what type of ruins from the Turtle Civilisation were you hoping to find here again, Seta?" Keitaro asked, more to pass the time than any desire for knowledge.

"Well, I figure that this might have been the site of one of their…holiday retreats, I guess you could call it." Seta answered distractedly. "It's isolated, and well away from their traditional shipping lanes. So no real chance of anyone accidentally stumbling across it on a trade mission. Plus, a lot of the artefacts we've found indicate that the former inhabitants were of an upper caste, if not actual members of royalty." He frowned at something, before continuing his perusal of the landmass. "But, from what I can see, there's no sign of the traditional temple anywhere. Which as you know is very unusual. Their entire culture centred around the worship of their turtle god. For there not to be one present is impossible, for all intents and purposes."

"Hey Papa? Come have a look at this." Sarah put in, pointing at a large mound of palm trees and jungle towards the northern and of the volcano.

Walking over, Seta looked at the patch of the island his daughter had indicated with interest. "Hmm…you may have something there, Sarah." She beamed up at him as he patted her head affectionately. "Part-timer. Take a few photo's of that, and we'll give them a going over tonight when we get back to camp."

Doing as he was asked, Keitaro took several snaps at varying degrees of zoom, before turning away to complete his former task of creating a photo mosaic of the entire island.

After eating the food they had brought surrounded by views that any restaurant owner would sell their first-born for, they packed up and headed back to their camp. Upon returning, they had enjoyed a swim in the warm tropical waters before having a sponge bath and eating dinner. When that was cleaned away, they spent some time poring over the photos that had been taken several hours before.

Seta kept coming back to the ones Keitaro had taken of the mound that Sarah had pointed out. Finally, he selected one and placed a finger on the screen. "Look at that Part-timer, and tell me if you can see anything."

Keitaro looked at where Seta's finger was indicating. 'Nup. Nothing jumping out at me.' He thought. Just as he was about to say as much, he happened to squint at the screen the right way. 'Hey, wait a minute…'

"Is that a straight line? And does the tree line seem to drop a few meters very sharply, right along that edge?"

Seta nodded, impressed that his new assistant had spotted it so quickly. "Yup! Almost as if a wall had been overgrown with vegetation. And as we all know, straight lines don't occur on their own in nature. There's something manmade under those trees." His eyes sparkled in anticipation of what they might find under there tomorrow.

"So, what do we do now. Report your findings to the University?" Keitaro asked.

"No, dork! We gotta get more proof first." Sarah chided him.

"Yup!" Seta agreed with his daughter. "So tonight we get a good nights sleep. Tomorrow we find that ruin and try to get inside."

Keitaro gulped. "Isn't…won't that be a little dangerous?" He asked, quite rightfully thinking that a ruin that has been abandoned for centuries might not be the most stable of structures to force an entry into.

"What's the matter? Haven't got the stones for a bit of real archaeology?" Sarah goaded him.

"Now now, Sarah. The part-timer is still new to our style of archaeology." He scolded his daughter very gently. "Give him time to get used to it. He'll be fine in the end."

"But-" Sarah frowned.

"But-" Keitaro fretted.

"And now its time to go to bed." Seta announced with a clap of his hands, completely ignoring the twin looks of annoyance he was getting from the others.

Seeing that it would be no use trying to talk with him tonight, Keitaro shrugged and crawled into his sleeping bag under the opposite wing that Sarah had claimed for herself and Seta. With a final wish that the next day would not bring any unpleasantness to their endeavour, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

The next morning went fairly smoothly.

Seta got them lost only a few times as he tried to match the photos to what they were walking though. After a couple of hours, they reached what he judged to be where the straight line in the jungle was.

"Hmmm…" Seta absently pulled out a cigarette and began puffing away as he looked at the solid wall of creeping vines that rose out of the jungle floor. He looked from side to overgrown side, deciding. After a moment, he shrugged and breathed out a cloud of smoke. He carefully watched which way the air took it. Shrugging again, he pointed to the left. "This way."

Keitaro watched as Seta and Sarah started heading in the direction he had indicated. 'That…that's how he decides which way to go? By following the wind! And I thought Su was occasionally nuts!' He shook his head, wondering about when the exact point in his life had been reached that he had stopped associating with normal people.

"Come on part-timer, keep up. You don't want to get left behind out here, do you?" Seta called out over his shoulder.

Wishing to avoid that result, Keitaro picked up his feet and followed them.

In no time at all, they came across what appeared to be a gateway. Two trees grew on either side of something that might have been a wooden door at some point in the distant past. Now, all that remained were four rusting spokes of metal sticking out of the sides. Whatever wood they had been holding on to had long ago rotted away.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Seta enthused. Pulling out a torch, he began making his way inside. Sarah latched on to his hand and activated her headlight. "Come on dork! Your not afraid of the dark, are you?" She poked her tongue out at Keitaro when he hesitated.

'Uh-huh, you're one to talk.' He thought to himself, noting the young girl's death-grip on Seta's hand. Steeling himself for whatever they might run across inside, he switched on his own flashlight and followed them inside the dark corridor.

A few minutes later, he stepped out into an overgrown courtyard. Seta was over the far side, wiping away some vines and getting very excited about what was under them.

"Hey Keitaro, check this out!" The Toudai professor shouted, gesturing wildly for him to join them. "This is amazing! My hypothesis was right. This island was a place for the upper class to get away to, from time to time."

"How can you tell?" Keitaro asked. He figured that it would be harder than this to find that sort of thing out.

Seta pointed at a faded mural on the wall. "From what I can tell, this seems to be a…tourist guide, I guess you could say." He pointed at certain features. "That says where the docks used to be. That describes the location of various inns, guest houses and hot springs. And this one…" Seta faded out, his jaw dropping as he translated something.

"What?" Keitaro and Sarah both demanded impatiently.

"I-I can't be one hundred percent sure, but this says where the entrance to the Hall of Petitioning is." He whispered, trying not to faint.

"Which means?" Keitaro enquired impatiently, not quite feeling the excitement the older man was.

"It means…" Seta faded out, before pulling his badly shaken thoughts together. "According to what I have read, the Turtle Culture used to be able to commune directly with their Gods at one point. Heck, these halls might even pre-date the Turtle Culture! Only a few of these Halls of Petitioning existed throughout their empire. Something about that the petitioning dais had to be set up in a very specific location. They would stand on this dais and appeal to the Gods to intercede on their behalf on any matter."

"So? Don't most cultures around the world have similar beliefs?" Keitaro asked, not really impressed. From Seta's earlier reaction, he had been hoping for something more dramatic.

"Yes, but there is anecdotal evidence that suggests that these petitioners were occasionally answered." Seta replied to the other two's frankly disbelieving expressions.

Sarah was the first to recover. "Yeah, whatever! Lets just explore." She demanded.

For once, Keitaro found himself in agreement with the pint-sized terror. "Does that map show how to get to this room?"

Seta blinked at their lack of enthusiasm. Don't they realise just how important this could be? "Oh, uh, yes it does."

"Well, lets check it out."

"Um, okay." Seta glanced at the map again, memorising the path they would have to take. "This way." He pointed towards a decaying building. Entering first, he motioned Keitaro and Sarah to hold back. "Normally, after the Turtle Civilisation has decided to abandon a settlement, they've been known to leave behind booby-traps to discourage the curious. Don't touch anything that looks weird." He cautioned, pointing towards an oddly shaped stone outcrop on the floor in front of him, before tapping it experimentally with the toe of his boot. Satisfied that it was not going to trigger anything, he turned back to them. "So just follow me and do exactly what I do-heyyyyyy…" Arms flailing about like a windmill, Seta tried to keep his balance as the floor opened up beneath him. Failing, he plummeted into the darkness. But not before snagging Keitaro and pulling the luckless Kanrinin in after him.

As quickly as it happened, the floor slid back into place, sealing any chance of following them into the blackness. Sarah looked numbly at the spot where they had disappeared into.

"Papa?" She whimpered.

Half a world away, Motoko was walking towards Su's room with the intention of telling the foreigner that dinner was ready. Reaching the door, she was about to knock when she heard one side of a conversation from within.

'Huh? Who could she be talking too?' Motoko wondered. Curious, she put an ear to the wood, the better to hear what was being said.

"Heyas, moms! Pretty good." Su's voice rang out clearly. A language Motoko was unfamiliar with replied warmly to her greeting.

'Ah, she must be talking to someone from her homeland. Her mother, from the sounds of it.' Motoko was about to draw away and give Su her privacy, when the young girl began raising her voice.

"WHAT! Why do I hafta…"

"What do you mean, 'There's no-one else close by'? What about Amalla?"

"But-"

"But I-"

"I know that-"

"Oh come on! I never agreed-"

"But Mom?"

"This sucks."

"Yeah alright, I understand."

"I get it, okay!"

"Fine."

"I love you too."

"Bye."

Motoko wondered what she had just overheard. It sounded like Su was being asked to do something she did not want to do, by her mother of all people. Concerned that her friend might be in some sort of trouble, she was about to knock and offer what help she could, when the door slid open suddenly, revealing a dejected-looking Su.

"So, ya heard all that?"

Motoko flushed slightly at being caught behaving like Kitsune. "I-I did not mean to intrude, but it seemed like you were being pressured into doing something. I would like to help, if I can." She offered.

Su looked up at her, as if weighing up whether to trust her with this or not. Deciding to take the chance, she smiled.

"Actually, there is something you can do. You up for a road trip?"

Notes: Sandball; kind of like a snowball, but grittier. (hey, what do you expect from someone who learnt how to swim before he could walk?)