A/N: How am I doing this? Three chapters. Also, I kinda feel sad about this one. *sniff*
-xox-
"I know you're there." It was a sorry attempt to sound as carefree and easygoing as Jima usually was. He clung to her lifeless body and fiddled around with her connection ports.
By the time he had found and pulled out a cable, the woman from the fire ladder stood next to him. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't... I should have known."
Jima could tell that she meant it. "Are you his owner?" he asked absentmindedly, plugging the cable into his earport and establishing a connection.
"For official purposes... yes." To humans, her voice would have been an unintelligible mumbling.
Jima cursed inwardly. He lacked the diagnostic software to determine how bad the damage was, but it was more than a little glitch.
"Is she alright?"
"Alright isn't the word I'd use."
The woman gulped. "I'm really sorry."
Jima frowned. "You make me curious. You really believe this to be your fault. Just why would you think that?" His hand moved through Dita's hair.
"Would you mind discussing that somewhere dryer?"
Jima nodded. Considering the time she had been out there, she had to be drenched by now.
"Kokubunji residence," she said, her voice still guilt-ridden.
"I figured."
Instead of answering, the woman merely walked over to the ladder and started climbing down.
Jima watched her disappear from his line of sight, packed Dita onto his back and followed the woman.
-xox-
There was a taxi waiting at the alley the ladder lead to. The driver opened his window. "You took your time, miss. You know that costs extra."
The woman nodded. "The government pays." With that, she pointed at Jima, opened the front door of the car and hopped in.
Jima followed her, somewhat irritated.
"Back to the Kokubunji residence." All of a sudden, she didn't seem to be oh so sorry at all. Or it was her way of masking guilt. Jima hadn't decided yet.
-xox-
When they entered the house, Minoru Kokubunji himself welcomed them. The boy first nodded at the woman, but then he turned to Jima and froze.
"Y-you... you're..."
"The national data bank, yes. Call me Jima." The persocom smirked. Kokubunji was known to be a big nerd for custom jobs and it showed.
Then the boy's eyes shifted to Dita, who still hang on Jima's back unconsciously.
"The reason why I accompanied your... friend." Jima looked over to the woman.
"Ms. Sato's just working together with me," Kokubunji explained.
Sato. Jima checked his data again. Even with her last name, there weren't any matches. Neither for her nor for that 'com. The only thing he knew was that Dita's current state was not part of Sato's plan.
"So... could you have a look at her?" Jima asked.
Kokubunji nodded. "Of course. Follow me."
-xox-
Not much later, they had Dita wired up to several of Kokubunji's persocoms. Jima leant on the couch she lay on, looking down at her. From the corners of his eyes, he noticed Sato sitting on a chair. She too seemed worried.
Kokubunji, on the other hand, was focused on the diagnosis program run by his persocom.
Jima smirked, remembering how the blue-haired 'com had hacked her for information on Chobits. He had given her the time she needed to find the rest of the pictures. The fact that she was now scanning Dita struck Jima as ironic.
"Diagnosis finished," Yuzuki announced.
Both Jima and Sato looked up at her.
"Several portions of data have been damaged. We should be able to fix that, though. The real problem is the CPU. Approximately half the cores have been irreparably damaged and the cooling system doesn't work properly any more." She looked at Jima with a sad look in her eyes. "It could have been worse, but for now, she won't run on full capacity."
Jima smiled slightly. Yuzuki was right. It could have been worse. However, since that 'com was still out there, it could become worse any time.
"So... you can fix her." Sato sounded relieved. "That's... good." She glanced over to Jima. "You demand answers, right?"
"You could say so." He looked down at Dita and smiled again. "Are you going to give them too?"
"Well... that guy. He wasn't really himself. He was possessed. Taken over. Yeah. By the one we're looking for. The bad guy." She smiled insecurely. "You're not going to believe that, right?"
Jima shrugged. "Who is that other guy?"
"Ask me something simpler. He's some kind of virus thingy. Not even Jack could explain that to me... I'm really clutching to that idiot ball, huh?" Sato slapped her palm onto her forehead and took an almost antique phone out of her labcoat pocket. She dialed a number and waited. "Come on, pick up."
Jima started calculating the amount of quirkiness in people in proportion to their intelligence quotient.
"Finally. Jack, you... you're hacking what? Okay, I'm not going to ask. Mainly because we have a problem." She flailed. "Tanoya has Dacoron." There was a moment of silence. "No, your ears are okay. Tanoya is roof hopping through Tokyo in Dacoron's body." She flopped back into the chair. "You know what, since I'm not going to understand that, I'll put you on speakers." She laid the phone down and pushed some buttons.
"Hi, more tech savvy people in the room," the person on the phone, apparently Jack, said. "So I'm going to give you a few of Dacoron's specs. Anyone noting this down?"
Jima nodded. "Start."
What followed was a bunch of hard- and software specifications, rattled down rather quickly for a human.
"And that's it. I'm in a hurry now, so-" The phone clicked, signaling that he had hung up.
"Wa- oh." Sato's glance wandered to the floor again and she put the phone away.
"Maybe these specs can help us take Tanoya down," Kokubunji suggested. "I'm sure there's a way to do that without harming Dacoron."
Sato sighed. She looked over to Dita, then out of the window.
Jima hopped over the couch and sat down on the floor next to it. He rested his hand on Dita's face and looked at her for a moment. It was strange to see her connected to a system that wasn't him.
A little thread in the back of his consciousness calculated possible damage levels, depending on the time the file restoration program had run, its version number and several other factors. Still, it was just an approximation.
He closed his eyes and listened to the faint humming of her hard drive. Yuzuki had been right. At least that part of Dita still worked fine.
