This is the last of the three chapters for this story. Any longer, and this would be tedious, don't you agree? So it ends here. Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked it. S7 will never be mine, but I'd like to really own that figurine of Hei-san that's already available in Japan. The figurines for the other six are really awesome, too!

Oh, yeah. I apologize for abusing the word "little" in this story. But I think you'll agree with me that all the other words in the MS Word thesaurus don't just quite say it the way I want it to mean.

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Many terrible thoughts ran through his head. The foremost of which was: had the boy fallen off a ledge and drowned, again? He was already quite fond of the boy he had saved at the start of his first service leave, and in no way was he letting him die again.

"HEI-CHAN!" he called out again. "Where IS that little redhead? HEI-CHAN!"

He reached the noodle shops near the ports, and asked all of them about a little redhaired boy. None had seen him.

"HEI-CHAN!"

"Goro-san!" came a shout back to him, from a few meters away.

But he did not know where the voice came from, so he did a complete circle. "Hei-chan? Where are you?"

"Goro-san!" This time it came from in front of him, and little Hei was waving both arms in the air with a grin.

The boy was at a dumpling shop. Soon a middle-aged and slightly rounded woman came beside him.

The thoughts of potential slave traders still had not left the young solder, and he immediately ran to the boy and the woman. "Who are you, madam, why are you with this boy, and what do you plan to do with him? Answer quickly and truthfully, please."

The woman did not reply, until the little boy tugged at her dress. "He's Goro-san. He saved me. He's alright."

The woman smiled at the boy's confidence, and acceded. "I work in this district's safe haven," the woman explained, as she presented an identification card. "He was crying when I found him. I thought he was alone, so I took him in for a while."

"And because you looked nice enough, he went with you," Gorobei sweatdropped. "Ayaya, do NOT scare me like that, Hei-chan!" he breathed a sigh of relief. "I never want you to lose your trust in people, but do learn to be careful, please?"

The little boy scratched his head and grinned.

"Are you alright?"

Hei nodded. "She was really nice."

He never knew how nice, but the lady did buy him some dumplings, of which one was left to finish. "Thank you," Gorobei bowed to the woman. "I hope he wasn't such a bother."

But a new thought was forming in his head. "Could you please take me to the safe haven? I want to see it."

"Certainly," she said.

The woman led the young man through the crowded streets of the city once again, until they reached the outskirts, to a large compound.

The outside of the compound was a bit dreary and drab. Inside, however, it was painted with warm, bright colors. Even that late at night, a few older children loitered in the halls, and some nurses were shooing younger ones to bed.

The lady explained. "The children here are mostly orphans because of the war. Some of them have brothers who are soldiers and could not take care of them. We try to give them an education while they here."

The boy looked carefully at all the aspects of the compound. He particularly looked at the children in the large bedrooms. For his part, Gorobei looked carefully if there was no hidden aspects to this safe haven, as he had heard did happen to others. But this safe haven seemed genuine, and the children in it seemed to be well cared for. He looked down at Hei, and his eyes showed that they agreed.

He looked at the lady, then at his little friend, and decided. "Would it be alright if you did take him in, for real? I'm free only this week, and I am looking for a good place to put him."

"Yes, it would not be a problem," the lady said, and smiled at the boy.

But the little boy looked up at the woman, then at the young soldier, back at the woman, back at the young soldier. He finally took a long look at the young man, took up his hand, and clung to him.

He sighed. "Maybe tomorrow, then, madam." It was all right with the lady.

The young soldier slung the boy on his back once again, and soon he was sleeping soundly. He walked back to the inn.

The next day, he brought his little friend to the military base. Besides showing him the machines and the cruisers, he wanted to show him how difficult it would be to live in the base, as a little boy.

It had the opposite effect. Hei gazed in awe at all the large machines that surrounded him, and his eyes lit up as Gorobei's comrades spared a few minutes to explain how the cruisers worked.

"When I grow up, I'm working at a place like this!" the boy promised. "I wanna make those cruisers fly!"

"Sure, my friend," the young soldier patted his head. "But first, you have to grow up."

"So, I'll stay here!"

"You can't, Hei!"

A siren blared. Gorobei took up the little boy and ran to a safe place. The soldiers started running to and fro, preparing weapons, machines, and cruisers. It was systematic in a messy way. But if anyone stood there who did not know what to do, he was sure to have been tripped or trampled in the general organized confusion. It was a drill, and he was glad his little friend saw it.

"You see, Hei-chan? You would be too small. People won't see you."

"I won't cause trouble! I promise!"

He had to strike hard, to make him understand. Even if he had to hurt him. "What happened to your mommy and daddy CAN happen to us. This base can be burned to the ground. You MIGHT be captured again, and I won't be there to save you. You MIGHT be killed, and I couldn't stop it."

The boy's jaw dropped, as he looked up at the young man.

Hei was silent for the rest of that afternoon, as they left the base, and as they walked back to the safe haven.

They were welcomed again by the woman from last night. She offered a hand to the little boy, but the boy clung to Gorobei, and would not let go.

The young man fought hard to keep back sniffles and tears. He lowered himself to the boy's level and ran his hand through the boy's hair. "I'd like to stay with you longer, too, Hei-chan, but I'm a soldier, and it's dangerous for you to live with me. I only have this week free. You have to grow up somewhere and not be afraid."

A few small tears appeared in the little boy's eyes. "I'll be good, Goro-san. I won't cry. I won't get lost. I won't run away…"

"That's not the point, Hei-chan, that's not the point," he sighed. "We're in a war, you know that. If you stay with me, chances are good you will get hurt, and you may be killed. Now, that's fine with me, but I don't want it for you."

The little boy wrapped his arms around the young man's arm.

"Please, madam," the young man begged.

"Believe me, I understand," she said. "Please follow me."

She led them to one of the larger rooms of the compound, already filled with children in double-decked beds. Most of the children were about the same age as the little boy, or even younger. A few of the other boys hugged little cruisers while they slept, which made Hei smile a bit.

She stopped at an empty bed at the end of the room, beside a window which let in the starry sky. She led the boy to the window, and pointed to the young soldier's base. "Your friend will be there, see? When he looks up, he will see you here."

Of course Gorobei knew the lady was offering the little boy a dream, but it was indeed a good one. He grinned to himself that he would probably look to the west for a few nights as well, just to remind himself about his little friend. As for Hei, that hope was enough to make him really happy.

The boy instinctively crawled up onto the bed, and patted the soft pillow. He smiled at the lady and at Gorobei as he snuggled under the blanket.

The young man stroked his little friend's hair. "Here's a story my dad told me," he began. "It's about this old man and this old woman with a peach tree in their backyard. The peaches were okay most years, but there was this one year when they got a really, really large peach. They let the large peach grow and grow, and finally it dropped to the ground…"

As he expected, as he wanted, before he could get to the part where the boy came out of the peach and was named Momotaro, Hei was already fast asleep, a smile on his face.

"And little Heihachi lived happily ever after," he concluded.

He bowed once more to the lady. "Please take care of him, really well. He is a smart and talented boy. Let him grow up without fearing the world, please."

"We will try our best," the woman promised, and went with him outside.

The woman and the soldier parted ways at the gates of the safe haven. He looked up for a moment at the building, toward the section where he left his little friend.

"I'm doing the right thing, I know I am," he said to himself. "Still….Egad, it hurts something terrible…I swear, if it hurts like this, I will never get my own children…"

But as he walked farther and farther from the gate, he heard the clang of the gate, and a little voice shouting.

"Goro-san! Goro-san!"

He looked behind him, and found his little redhaired friend, with two streams of tears down his cheeks. Being small enough, he slipped through the bars of the gate, and passed through to the young man's side.

Gorobei shook his head and laughed sadly. "I thought so. I couldn't trick you like that. Now, please, Hei. Stay here. Go on. Forget about me, and live a happy life."

Little Hei ran up to him."I'll never forget you," the boy said.

"Five coins say you will, my little friend, in only a year," he smiled.

"No, no, I won't!"

"But we WILL see each other again," he added. "You can bet on it. So go on and forget, and don't worry about it."

"But, but, Goro-san…"

"See? I'll forget about you, too. But we will meet each other, some day, and become friends all over again."

The boy looked up at him. "We will see each other again? You promise?"

"Yes. I have that feeling we will. It may take a while, but we will."

The boy tried to wrap his arms around whatever of his waist he could manage.

The young man kneeled, and allowed the boy to give him a tight hug. He allowed him to sniffle and cry on his shirt. He hugged him back. "Always remember to smile, even when you are sad," he told him. "Never forget THAT."

"Okay," the little boy promised.

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It was the first of many, many service leaves the young soldier would get.

Many years passed. Wars and battles began. Wars and battles ended.

With the many concerns of life in the military service, then of life as a wanderer, that first service leave was slowly forgotten.

Life had both been kind and unkind to Katayama Gorobei. He was alive and intact, but he was now poor and living off his skills in weapons. It was true that many of his kind looked down on him for capitalizing on samurai skills. It was also true that his life did not make him rich. But every time he saw a group of children laugh and applaud his performance, everything was forgiven, as he eagerly awaited another day.

As chance would have it, he saw a performance by another of his kind. A swordsman in white moved with swift grace and impeccable style, as he rescued a merchant's baby. It did not take much for Gorobei to be interested in the man. It took even less for him to accept the offer to work with that master swordsman.

His first mission under this new commander was to help find five other swordsmen. So far, it had not been easy. There were many swordsmen. There had been none willing or good enough to accept the offer. They had already seen several sunsets without any new recruits. He returned to Masamune's workshop earlier than the others that day, having gone his own way.

This sunset was different. Masamune talked to him about a samurai who had offered to chop wood in exchange for a wind-up contraption Gorobei was not sure he understood. The sound of the firewood getting chopped was smooth and even, quite impressive. It was even more impressive that the samurai was using his own sword to chop the wood.

The small samurai wore a pilot cap that partly hid his orange-red hair. He saw Gorobei, bowed politely, then resumed chopping. The older samurai talked to the younger for a while.

"You seem quite happy, for someone who lives by the day," the older one said.

"Someone once told me to always remember to smile, even when I was sad," the other replied, then grinned at him. "So I do just that."

He proceeded and asked the young man what he thought about being alive, and…would he be willing to destroy 40 Nobuseri? The redhead in the pilot cap facefaulted, but he agreed.

"A pleasure working with a nice young man like you, then," he presented a hand. "My name is Katayama Gorobei."

"Pleasure's all mine," the redhead bowed to him. "Hayashida Heihachi. From here and there."

"Heihachi!" He looked at the young man quite suddenly.

"Yes, sir?"

He shook his head, and rubbed his eyes. "Never mind….I just thought I remembered something," he shrugged. "The others will be coming shortly. Come inside for some dinner."

Heihachi went in, Gorobei leading the way. "Um, Katayama-san…," he stopped him, "I question, if I may?"

"Call me Gorobei, for goodness' sakes, everyone does!" the older man chuckled. "Now, what's the question?"

"Um……have we met, before?"

"Hmmm…." The man rubbed his chin. "I don't seem to remember if we have, my friend. If that is so, then fate wills it that we meet again. That is all."

The redhaired samurai grinned, and followed him. "Okay."

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Motokonobaka – Well, he won't have to do that anymore, as you see. Samuraiko – I actually forgot about that little conversation you noted. Your writing astounds me to no end, and the fact that you read MY work is a great honor. Best of luck with that DBZ book thing. Narrizan – It scares me no end that a mother of 2 is reading my material and enjoying it. But thanks a lot, and thanks for liking the link. That and a few other pics of Heihachi at 7 at the same site couldn't get out of my head. Junyortrakr—You know, you're not forced to read my S7 stuff, hehe. Thanks all the same for reading. Me—You probably have seen that pic, and yes, it's beyond cute. It's an "Awwwwwww….." moment.

Thanks again for reading. I have an idea still boiling which refuses to brew. I hope it brews already. Here's to wishing the brewing idea already brews over by the end of March, and I will write helter-skelter like I did for Tenshi. Until then, see ya around.

EK out.