Hi together! I know that I haven't been a good writer in the last few weeks or months, depending on the last time you heard of me. I'm deeply sorry to have you waiting so long but since January I've been drowning in a sea of work and often I was just too tired to sit down and write a new chapter.

But what's this then you may ask? Isn't this a new story? Well, not so much. I initially had the idea sometime last fall and from time to time I changed a few words or rewrote something or just structured my thought as to where I want this story to go and how to improve my style, so that you wouldn't be able to guess the ending as soon as you read the first page. Anyways, I want to thank all of you who reviewed my other story "Summer in Tokyo" and whose comments encouraged me to continue writing – and actually to start with this story at all. Thank you very much.

-CoM

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Disclaimer: As usual nothing belongs to poor me. And yes, I write for fun not for profit yadda yadda

'Thoughts'

"Speech"

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Yoshikawa Noboru was not like all the other boys of his age.

In fact, he was a rather skinny boy who was easily frightened by most things raging from spiders to other human beings and who didn't possess a strong will.

And exactly that was the reason why he found himself often on the short end of the stick when dealing not only with his classmates but also with everyone else at school.

Not only did they play pranks on him almost every day but the bullies made his life a living hell too, especially if his attackers were female. The group around Anko Uehara had made a daily routine of humiliating and beating him up, all the while telling him what a wimp of gigantic proportions he was. That's not really the kind of stuff that gives you a whole lot of self-confidence as a teenage male.

'Damn it!' It's not as if he didn't notice it himself, he thought dejectedly, as he was walking home after an encounter with the three she-devils. It had gotten late and the street lamps had long since been turned on. What did it matter though; his parents were never at home. They were always away on business trips and so it was unimportant if he came home late or not at all.

He rubbed his sore behind unconciously and had to bite back his tears the next moment.

His tormentors had been 'creative' that day, he thought, his bad mood getting even worse at the mere thought of what they had done to him this time.

Out of nowhere a hand had grabbed his collar and pulled him back into the schoolyard just as he was walking out of the schoolgates. He didn't protest nor did he turn around because he knew that if he put up a fight that they would pay him back tenfold. He was led across the yard and then unceremoniusly thrown into one of the empty lockerrooms in the gym hall.

His suspicions were confirmed when he looked up from the floor to Uehara's smiling face. Turning his head he spotted the two other girls, one of them holding a pair of handcuffs and the other a riding crop. Getting very pale very fast he looked back to Anko who had produced a large wooden paddle out of seemingly nowhere. "You were a bad boy today, Yoshikawa" she told him while patting the thing affectionately.

What had followed had been the two most painful hours in his entire life up until then. Afterwards they had left him lying on the floor with his pants around his ankles and still sniffling, mind you, and had gone home or wherever that was where girls like them went.

The prospect of a nice warm bath and something to eat lifted his spirits again and he made his way home as fast as his injuries allowed him to.

Upon his arrival, the first thing he did was to take off his shirt in order to let the evening air cool the wounds on his back and front. Even though he often regretted not having a sibling or spending more time with his parents, it were moments like these, where he could just kick back and do as he pleased that made him glad about the situation as it was.

After he had had his bath he ate the leftovers from yesterday's takeout and went to this room, where he proceeded to get to bed. But sleep didn't come to him easy, partly due to the pain coming from his backside and partly due to the storm that raged on outside.

'Just great, I'm dead tired and I can't fall asleep. Someone must really hate me up there', he thought angrily when he stood up. Walking over to the tv set he turned it on, ignoring all the warnings his mother had taught him as a child. He wasn't supposed to watch television during a storm because lightning might strike the house. So what? Even if it happened the most it could do is break the tv and/or blow a fuse. There were worse things in life that could happen to you. He knew from experience, he thought dejectedly.

"Bah, there's absolutely nothing interesting", he said out loud to no one particulary, while zapping through the channels. Figuring that nothing non-adult late-night programmes had to offer could raise his interest, he decided to just watch the next best channel. As luck would have it, a rerun of some moderately good super robot show he had watched was on screen.

Seeing the main-character fighting it out with his archenemy made Noboru sad again.

How he wished that he could be strong like the hero or even the bad guy, he didn't care which side he would be on. He felt foolish and angry at himself for comparing himself with some drawn up character from a bad mecha anime, but he couldn't help it. He hated his weakness; he hated not being able to defend himself and most of all he hated himself for being the way he was. Hot tears of rage mixed with sadness went down his face.

Unnoticed by him, the wind outside had picked up and the frequency at which lightning flashed across the sky increased.

Sobs racked his body by then and he clenched his fists tightly at his side, all the while his eyes were fixed at the tv screen. A blinding rage unlike everything he had ever felt before came over him and as unusual as the sight seemed from the outside, Yoshikawa snapped. His face crumpled up in an uncharacteristic snarl and he swiftly lifted himself from the floor and stomped towards the tv-set. He lifted the still working and plugged in device effortlessly from the small table and high over his head. A kick from his barefooted left leg shattered the only window of his room and he leaned out of the broken remains, the tv set high over his head, ready to throw it down. It was the only way for him to express his anger. The pounding of his blood in his ears droned out the thunder and in his adrenaline induced stage he didn't feel the pain coming from his injuries.

"DIE YOU BASTARD!!!" he screamed with a murderous look on his face as he prepared to throw the TV out of his broken window.

The next moment he was immersed in a world of pain. There was heat, unbearable heat. It was as if he was boiled from the inside. He wanted to scream instinctively but nothing came out of his throat. His nervous system went haywire and he felt as if every fiber of his body was slowly being ripped apart. Then, just as fast as it came it was gone. He felt his limp body slowly tipping forwards, the TV already on his way down. He knew he was going to fall but there was nothing he could do about it. Truth to be told, he didn't care: He just wanted to sleep. A sweet break from all of it. The darkness that slowly came over his vision felt comfortable and warm, like a soft blanket that came right out of the dryer. Unconscious and with his eyes closed, Noboru Yoshikawa fell from the second story window of his house.

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The next Morning:

With a start Yoshikawa woke up in his front lawn and very slowly pushed himself up with his unstable arms. Bad idea. At once all his senses were assaulted with a barrage of information: he could feel every movement of the air around him, he could hear all the sounds around him, from the ants in his lawn to the noise coming from the traffic, and worst of all he smelt everything around him.

"UNGHHHH-BLARGH-!!" He promptly proceeded to empty his stomach onto the still wet concrete with audible splashes, which hurt his hyper-sensitive hearing even more. After a good five minutes he was still trying to puke but nothing came out. After another five minutes he had calmed down considerably and moved his body into a sitting position.

'What the hell happened to me?' He felt a sudden pain in his head and instinctively put a hand to his head. Images flashed before his eyes: school, Anko, his room, his TV, lightning, darkness. Slowly he connected the images and his memory of the previous evening returned. He was dumbfounded.

'NO way did that happen!' he thought. It just couldn't be true, could it? He knew it was to ridiculous but he had to confirm it.

He shakily stood up and looked slowly around him, looking for any evidence that might prove last night was not a dream. Never mind that he had no idea why he was sleeping in his front lawn if the events of last night didn't happen. It was just a…coincidence. Yeah. It had to be a coincidence. He turned his head to the left and the massive facefault that ensued nearly broke his jaw.

He picked himself up from the ground and stared at the charred and broken remains of his TV-set.

'IT WASN'T A DREAM!!! I NEARLY DIED!!!" he was hyper-ventilating now. He walked up and down his front lawn with his head in his hands. 'WHY THE HELL DID I DO SOMETHING SO STUPID?!? DO I REALLY HAVE A DEATH WISH?!?'

After a few moments of questioning his sanity he finally noticed, that yes, he could still move by himself, and that no he wasn't hurting anywhere. Strangely enough his bruises from the day before had vanished. Likewise, the cuts in his leg from kicking the window in last night were gone too.

'Just a moment, how is this possible?'

He checked his arms and bare legs for bruises or any signs of a bleeding.

'Nothing. Could someone survive this fall because of sheer luck alone?' he wondered.

He looked at the place he had woken up and facefaulted for the second time in 15 minutes. There was a lifelike imprint, complete with hair and all fingers of Yoshikawa in the ground.

"More like I survived this because I'm a frigging freak of nature." he thought out loud. No live being could leave such a deep imprint in pure concrete and stone. Absolutely nothing. The only thing coming close to this kind of crater was…no that was silly.

'I mean, come on. How could it happen that for 15 years straight neither my parents nor me found out I'm a robot? Fat chance about that. I must have some serious brain damage. Yeah, I should get dressed and get to a hospital ASAP and-' his internal tirade was cut short when the universe decided it hadn't made his life shitty enough and took a dump on his head. Literally.

Something cold wet landed on his forehead, nose and lips. 'Motherfu-' A crow had emptied her bowels while up in the air and hit Noboru square in the face with it. The bird landed on the roof of his house and stared now down smugly at him as if wanting to say 'I shat on your face. What you're gonna do about it you crybaby? Hit me? Try me!'

Account it to the extreme circumstances he was in at that time or his generally angry and confused mood, but Noboru snapped for the second time in two days. A strange sight to behold.

"DIIEEEEEEE!!!!" He screamed at the crow with murder in his eyes.

Suddenly, a futuristic looking, flying...shield-like thing materialised a few centimetres to the right of him. He barely had time to register the sound of raw energy coming from the flying thing, before a massive violet beam of light nearly blinded him. The accompanying boom sent him flying to his back.

When he looked up at where the beam had supposedly gone he only saw a few black feathers flying around randomly about the air where the foul fowl had been moments ago. He looked back at the hovering shield-thing, which gave a barely noticeable hum off.

"No way." Noboru was awestruck. His eyes had grown to the size of saucers and he had an expression of pure surprise on his face. For a few minutes he just continued to stare at the floating machinery with the same expression. Suddenly his surprise gave way to a sadistic, nearly insane smirk.

"This is going to be so MUCH fun." He said while rubbing his hands together eagerly. The strange twist of fate he had always been waiting for had come and now it seemed he held the trump card.

The residents of Tokio were in for a lot of trouble. Some more than others, he thought devilishly.