"Haku," Neru-chan said softly, parting our lips. Standing back, she forgot to stop walking back and fell off the stage and into the crowd.
"Neru!" I called to her, as the crowd generously lifted her back onto the stage. I helped her up and we clumsily fell backwards onto each other. The cheering in the crowd thundered as they got a bonus view from the floor. A few moments later, I leaned up to give Neru-chan a kiss, which she bent down lower to embrace with one of her own.
Breaking off the kiss, we stood up, dusting each other off. Suddenly the virtual crowd gasped, and I turned to see Miku-chan enter the room. "Am I not welcome here?" she said, in response to the crowd. Turning toward us, she said, "Gumi would like to see you both. She wants you to wait a moment before heading over."
"That's okay with us," I said, blinking blankly. Gumi-san wants to see us? Why?
Miku-chan sighed and walked over to the hologram projector controls and changed the scene from the concert to the bottom of the mountain which our temporary residence was. She began to pace in place and the hologram moved with her steps to simulate actually being there. Me and Neru-chan stood and watched quietly as she paced a lap around the mountain, occasionally looking around.
Finding nothing but satisfied nonetheless, Miku-chan switched back to the stage visualization with an expressionless face. Sighing, she turned to us and was about to say something when a gunshot resounded, causing all three of us to jump backwards against the wall. I turned toward the origin and saw the tip of the long blue scarf the shooter wore disappearing down the corridor. I was about to run after him when I saw Neru-chan's face tear up.
I looked over and saw Miku-chan fall to the ground dead, with a streak of electricity faintly emitting from her head. "Miku-chan…" I muttered, shocked. "Neru, take care of her," I told her quickly, then ran after the shooter. But when I turned back to the door I saw the man leave through, he was at the door tossing an EMP grenade toward us.
I know the grenade wouldn't affect normal human beings and singers and other celebrities since they aren't part machine, most of them any way, but everyone in the Vocaloid crew is at least half-machine, with the sole exceptions of Luka and Gakupo, who are about a tenth and twentieth (or seventieth, depending if he's in a serious battle or not) parts machine respectively.
I figured that if I caught and buffered the EMP, I would at least save Neru-chan and Miku-chan from the blast. I looked up at the man to see him turning to depart again. He had blue hair and eyes to match his scarf, and a large white winter coat that reached his knees. I took an eye-snapshot and sent it to the Vocaloid database, in hopes that either Gumi-san or the Director would get it.
I reached up to grab the grenade from midair, when someone else caught it and was about to throw it back, but they hit my shoulder and dropped it behind me. The newcomer turned around, surprised and scared. I identified them as Ruko-san, a newer Vocaloid with black hair with red and blue streaks and eyes. I met her gaze for a moment, equally scared. "Gome no zai," she said, shortly before the grenade went off, incapacitating everyone except the shooter, who had run off, closing the door behind him.
RUNNING/USER/YOWANE-H/SYSTEM/SYSTEM-RESTORE.
As I regained consciousness, I felt like lead. Even lifting my fingers was hard.
RUNNING/USER/YOWANE-H/SYSTEM/FUNCTION-BLOCK-REMOVE.
Yeah, much better. I sat up and looked around, seeing the others lying around like I was. Ruko-san had her mouth open in a scream, which would have came had our automatic system functions not came in.
Automatic System Functions? More like Automatic System Fails. Me and Ruko were the first ones to have them, and they've been a burden to us every goddamn time we didn't want them. It's a good thing when we see the director again he'll remove the programs.
I stood and looked for Neru-chan, but through all the smoke and dim light it wasn't easy. I stumbled in the direction I believe was toward her, and ran into wall, simultaneously hitting the door switch. The cloud of smoke billowed out, and the room brightened up. I saw and walked over to Neru- and Miku-chan, and confirmed that Miku-chan was really dead.
Neru-chan had a severe burn on her arm where her cell phone was burning. I knocked it off onto the floor, then stamped it out. I guess she needed a new cell phone anyway. Other than the burn, she appeared fine.
"Neru," I said, nudging her. "Neru-chan."
No response. I checked for her heartbeat, which was still there thankfully. Leaving her side, I checked to see if Ruko-chan was also alive, and like Ritsu, the klutz was still alive. Sighing, I stood and exited the room.
From the corridor, I saw that both ways were blocked by the security lock. The man could have them set off, but where would he go from there? I took a guess on which direction he must've taken, and headed down the corridor. I tried to remember how I got to the room, but conveniently couldn't.
When we find you, blue-man, we'll beat your face in for sure. I unfastened the lock and ducked out of the way incase he was there. Carefully, I checked he wasn't there, and finding that he really wasn't there and pressed on.
After going one way without turning, I headed back and checked on the two I left in the room, and I was glad to see them getting their bearings. I continued down the other hall, and soon enough, I found the security panel. The code was fortunately on the panel, however, it was in Braille.
I thought Kiyoteru-san was the only one that needed glasses. I didn't know how to convert Braille, and I didn't want Ruko-san to mess with it. Neru-chan didn't say crap most of the time, usually communicating through text, which was kinda hard without a device for it. Moving on, I left it alone and continued on.
I tried to connect to the Vocaloid database, but it seemed those electronic components are still shot, and they will be until the Director gets in contact with us. The security locks weren't much more than a nuisance when lockdown wasn't initiated, compared to when they were. At that time, they essentially double as blast doors.
Finishing the corridor, I started working inward. The process was slow, and by the forty-something-th door, I said screw it and just unfastened the doors one after another. I made it to the middle when I met up with Neru-chan and Ruko-san, who had been helping me, and found there was three more doors left. None of us had found the stairs yet, nor the man.
"Alright, Ruko-san, pick a door and open it," I instructed. She chose the middle door. And behind it was… the broom closet. She expressed her disappointment, then sat back. Neru-chan chose the door on the left, which revealed a broken window with climbing equipment protruding from the bottom, securely fastened.
That left the remaining door. We double-checked to make sure everything on the floor was at least examined for a way out. If we found something other than stairs behind that door, we were going to have a blast with the climbing equipment.
We made sure that if the man was waiting behind the door we had an escape plan. Kind of. I grasped the handles and pulled back, freeing the turn mechanism. I turned and pulled back quickly, and when I had it at about ninety-degrees, I jumped back and did a backwards somersault. Nothing.
The three of us looked around the door cautiously and saw our way out. The stairs seemed to gleam hope and beg us to use them, but Neru-chan blocked the way. "Was ist es, Aki?" Ruko-san asked, in German no less. With a glare from Neru-chan, Ruko-san translated; "What is it?"
Neru-chan, pleased, pointed out a lantern that was hovering in the center of the threshold. It was an old-fashioned dark gray lantern, emitting a faint white light. It did seem out of place, but I guess I didn't see what was wrong with it. "Yeah?" I said, confused.
"What's holding it up?" Ruko-san pointed out. I looked over again. It was hovering there without strings, nor a stand nor pole nor nothing. It was just hanging there.
"I'll go first, to see if I can get a better view. You two stay back," I ordered. I turned and started toward it. It seemed to sway, but didn't make any major movements until I was in about two arms-lengths, which it noticeably shifted, then started toward me. I backed up slowly as it approached. When it was less than arms-length, it spun momentarily, and I heard something being swung when my tie parted from its knot.
Run. I turned and dashed out of the room, turning only once to see it following at a slightly slower pace but still fast. I ran past Neru-chan and Ruko-san who noticed the lantern following me, and ran their own pre-planned direction.
The lantern stopped momentarily, deciding who to follow. After a moment of reprieve, it chased after Neru-chan. I stopped to catch my breath, and Ruko-san moved beside me. "We could try to help, but I'm sure that Akita will follow the path and come back to us alive. I didn't like your tie anyway," she blabbed. I smacked her on the back of her head.
I moved to meet Neru-chan on her path, which led me almost the entire way. When I finally did meet up to her, she was almost crying. I stopped her and made her speak. What came out didn't please me.
"That thing… Miku-chan… Taking over…"
That was all the motivation I needed to sprint to the stairs. I ran with Neru-chan at my heels, soon followed by Ruko-san when we passed her. "What's going on, Yowane-san?" she asked.
"That thing is taking over Miku-chan's corpse!" I called back.
"F*kk!" Ruko-san cursed. "Can't we just lock it in?"
That gave me an idea. "I have a plan, thanks to you. You two, don't follow me!" I turned and ran for the security pad near the room that the creature was. Without a second thought, I randomly pressed four digits it asked for.
"SECURITY BLOCKS UNLOCKED." I pressed four more digits, activating the security locks, before punching the keypad. Then I strategically undid the locks manually and flew down the stairs. Neru-chan and Ruko-san were waiting for me at the bottom.
"Lets go," I told them and at a more leisure pace, headed for the front door.
From there on, we stopped worrying about the lantern monster and focused on the man and finding a connection to the Director and Gumi-san. But this mansion on the mountainside proved to be difficult to navigate. We ran into Rin Kagamine-chan, who was upset about all the security locks and losing sight of her brother.
We asked if she knew someone with blue hair and eyes with a matching scarf, without telling her what he had done, and she said it was an older member of the Vocaloid crew named Kaito, who had been away with Meiko, his wife and the first official Vocaloid member, for the week.
Week? Then who did we see earlier? We didn't want to pry any further, so we left it at that. We turned to leave, but Kagamine-chan grabbed my arm. "Have you seen my brother or Miku? Or even Tei?" she asked.
"I don't know where Sukone-san or Kagamine-kun are, but Miku-san is upstairs, taking a rest," I answered as honestly as possible, not wanting to explain a lantern monster or what it had done to Miku-san.
"You really don't want to disturb her right now. She's not in the best of moods," Ruko-san said rudely.
"Oh, okay. I was just wondering. Thank you anyway," Kagamine-chan said before leaving. We proceeded our hunt for the elusive front door, and each had a round of who can say a worse insult about this Kaito guy.
Neru-chan topped us all by saying this: "He is not evil, nor is he mad, crazy, or even a magnificent turd. He is Kaito. Kaito is eviler than pure evil; madder than mad; and even crazier than crazy. That's because he is Kaito."
We laughed at that. It was true, he was Kaito.
We turned another corner and finally found the exit, which we happily left the building through. After all that, fresh air never seemed so refreshing. We walked down the mountain path and looked about, and found the path that Miku-san took on the Globe Sim.
"Hey, let's stretch our legs," I offered, indicating the path. Neru-chan nodded in understanding, while Ruko-san threw out a causal 'Why Not?'.
We took to the path, trying to figure out what Miku-san had been looking for, when we spotted two people lying on the ground a distance away. I looked at Neru-chan and she exchanged glances. Ruko-san looked at us questioningly. We walked over to them, but was horrified to what we saw.
Len Kagamine-san was lying on the ground motionless with a large kitchen knife in his back; and there was Sukone-san, and over there she was, and at the bottom of the hill was her dented head, and so forth. We silently turned and walked away.
Kagamine-chan was not going to be happy.