"Endsville is burning."
He walked alone alongside the dull, un-shiny waters of the river. Far off in the horizon, the sun had begun to set, changing the colors of the sky into a beautiful collage of orange and yellow. Soon, night would overtake the city and the stars into which she had flown off into that day would become visible. Once again reminding him of what he had lost when she had left him.
It had only been a month since she had gone, but everything now seemed so unlike it had been the time that Haruko had been with him. Things had changed, but at the same time, they hadn't.
Everything was "normal" in the midst of something completely not. That was just how things worked in the city of Mabase, Japan. Naota knew that, but he couldn't accept it. He had tried, and for a time, it had worked. For a time, he had even tried to forget everything that had happened and slip into the role of the "kid" that he had been told so many times he was.
During those days of feigned normality, he began to wonder why he couldn't just forget like the ones around him could. He was a born citizen of Mabase, after all; the ability to forget change was seemingly hardwired into their very genes. It was something most citizens knew how to do before they couldn't even form coherent thoughts.
It's because I swung the bat, Naota thought to himself with a sigh. He didn't regret doing it; the city would have been decimated alongside with everyone in it had he not. He knew that was what motivated him to swing the Gibson Flying-V that she had pulled out of him that time atop the giant iron that was the Medical Mechanica Plant – or had it been Meccanica?
Yet, at times, he wondered if he had truly saved everyone, if it wasn't just one bit fluke that he managed to stop the ball. It had been about to explode, and he knew if he had been truly alone it would have. Haruko had bailed him out that one time, and even though, she had acted indifferent to the situation at the time; he thought that she would have bailed them all out if he hadn't been able to swing the guitar against the satellite in the first place. At least, that's what he thought.
It was a ball, he thought to himself, clutching his bent, red bat as he did so, and there was a hand, a throw, a sinker. He pointed the bat to the sky, then got into his batter's stance, and swung.
Dropping the arm holding the bat, he trudged forward towards his old haunt.
He wasn't sure what had compelled him to take a stroll down memory lane, or in this case, memory riverside. He just knew it felt right to do so. So, in spite of his mind telling him it was a bad idea, he decided to ditch school that day and visit the places he hadn't been to since those days that seemed so long ago, but really weren't. Eri wouldn't beat him down too hard for missing class, right?
He had already visited Café Bleu, the now-abandoned MM plant, and several other spots; including the old roadside ramen shop he and Haruko had shared bowls of ramen at. Now came the one he had tried his best to avoid, the spot of his countless meetings with Samejima Mamimi.
He hugged his bat tightly as he neared the spot under the bridge he had spent countless hours under. Most of the time, doing his homework there instead of at home because it wasn't cool, and it really wasn't. Who did that anyways?
"Alright," he said aloud to no one but himself, "I'm here, now what, Naota?"
Everything there still looked the same, of course it does, he told himself, it hasn't been too long since you've last been here, Naota. The grass was still green, the river was the same blue color it always had been, and the bridge was still standing directly above him. This whole time he had been expecting something to be completely off with the place; something that would completely blow his mind as he gazed upon it. Yet, everything looked normal, and even now that everything around him felt way too "normal," the thought of this spot of all places being normal blew his mind.
He laughed in spite of himself and sat down on the grass with a muffled "thunk." He set his bat down beside him and lay back, tucking his arms behind his head to use as a make-shift pillow. He placed his red baseball cap over his face and drifted off into his memories…memories of times when things weren't quite so normal.
…
The Bureau of Interstellar Immigration main headquarters is truly an impressive sight to behold. Though, as its location is unavailable to anyone but the highest government or military officials, you won't ever have the pleasure to gaze upon it. Hidden underneath a quaint Japanese bakery -- which of course no one knows the location to, -- that oddly enough sells a rare kind of super-spicy curry bread (only found in two bakeries in the world, one whose brand had recently been discontinued,) it sinks beneath the earth's surface for about two hundred kilometers. In it, it holds dozens of highly top-secret organizations all umbrella'd under the Bureau of Interstellar Immigration.
Within the walls of this hive-like base of operations many a-interstellar being has passed. It is full of the latest alien-tracking, intelligence, weapon, and any other kind of technology that a bureau that makes its living off of the immigration of alien beings into the world we call Earth has to have in order to get the job done.
Commander Amarao had not set foot in the place in two years, and the last time he had gone there he hadn't exactly left on the best terms with his boss. It had had something to do with his section's inability to spot an alien craft floating over the Pacific Ocean, which then proceeded to crash into the ocean it was floating over, causing a massive flood. No one was injured, of course, and there were no reports of the flood in the media. The bureau had done their job in covering it up with a routine Hollywood scandal, and as it always did, it worked. But the beings inside the ship in question sued the planet earth for not being soft enough to crash-land a ship on.
The UN ended up dishing out over two billion dollars to be converted into the currency which the beings used. Amarao wasn't sure, but he thought the currency might have been marshmellows.
Amarao looked down the road at the small shack that lay just ahead. It still looked the same, he thought/i still had that ugly dark-green and red color scheme too./i
He parked his Volkswagen Rabbit in the plot of dirt in front of the bakery and got out. The sun was shining its usual "noon" shine, and he could smell salt in the air. The coast wasn't too far from his location. He clutched his black, attaché suitcase, put his yellow-tinted shades on, adjusted his eyebrows, and walked in through the wire-framed door. A bell jingled a happy tune, announcing to its world -- which just happened to be this nearly, empty shack of a bakery -- he had arrived, as he pushed the door open.
"Welcome, sir!" A cheerful, old lady chirped from behind a wooden counter and small, electric fan. The bread they had was displayed on a crude, hand-drawn menu in front of the counter. Amarao noted the "super-spicy curry bread" and held back his disgust, where had he seen that before?
"Can I help you with anything, sir?" The old lady said getting up from her stool behind the counter, standing side by side with the stool, she didn't seem much taller than it herself. This made the exchange between the two
very awkward, Amarao had to bend down just to look at her when he spoke and she had crane her neck upwards just to attempt eye contact.
"Well," Amarao began in a calm voice, "I was wondering; would you happen to have any Belgium Waffles here? My boss said this place made the best in the universe."
The old woman's face lit up with a knowing look and she immediately rushed to his side, "Of course we do! Right this way, sir, they're in the back next crescents."
She led him by the sleeve, pushing aside a curtain to reveal a small room full of ovens. She marched over to an antique looking one and turned the heat knob up to its highest setting. She stood back with a pleased look, Amarao just stood there holding his case.
He had this seen what happened next a few times in his life as an agent for the bureau, but it never ceased to amaze him every time it happened. And, he had seen some pretty amazing things in his life. He thought back to Raharu for a second, but immediately forgot his train of thought as the old oven began to move.
The old, rusted oven immediately sprang to life, steam emitting from under and behind it. It began to reshape itself, the metal looking more like liquid than the solid it was supposed to be. It expanded in height and width, it became sleeker, the knobs and buttons on the oven changing location and forming rows with different words written above each button. In the end, it became the only way to get to the bureau's headquarters, an elevator, or as many in the bureau had dubbed it, the "Oven-Express.
He looked at the old lady once more, who smiled happily at him waving him of, and walked into the oven-express-elevator. Looking over the console, he noticed that one of the buttons hadn't changed fully, so he kicked the button panel and the button immediately corrected itself. Some happy muzak played in the background of the elevator, he grimaced, he had always hated this part.
Now or never, Amarao, he thought to himself as he looked over the buttons and selected "B-93" off the list, I'm beginning to think I should have let Kitsurubami come instead like I had originally planned.
The oven-express immediately began to hum with life and Amarao braced himself for what came next. With a jerk, the oven-express went down at speeds even the most daring thrill-seeker would have lost his lunch at. One had to wonder why the people who built this one-of-a-kind elevator hadn't become roller-coaster designers instead of working for the government. This elevator alone gave even the biggest and fastest roller coasters a run for their money.
Then, after the longest 30 seconds of Amarao's life, the elevator stopped. It didn't even bother to slow down as it did so, it just stopped. The sudden stop caused Amarao to hit his head on the roof of the oven-elevator.
"Gah, son-of-a," Amarao yelled as the door opened, "Ooh, err, hello, sir! Commander Amarao of the Ja-"
"I know who you are, Amarao, now get up, we have things to discuss."
"Yes, sir."
On the other side of the world, a young woman who not long ago had been called by some "Native Girl," was fingering a small, portable game console. She was setting aflame the legendary city of Devils, Endsville. "Ooh, look," she giggled, possessed by the flashing pixels on the screen, "Endsville is burning!"
(End chapter 1.)