Chapter 53: Afternoon

15:05 PM (Japan Time), Monday July the 30th…

"… Ah! Good afternoon, Netto –kun, Saito – kun."

"Huh? Ah. I'd forgotten you were coming over, Tooru – kun."

"What happened to Netto – kun? He looks down."

"Huff. Some imbecile had to bring up a trauma."

"What?"

"I'll explain inside."

"A-alright…"

Saito (still guiding Netto who was hanging his head down and silent) reached their house and spotted Hikawa standing next to the steps: he looked surprised by Saito's hostile face.

"I'll open up."

Saito unlocked the house and guided Netto up to the bedroom with Hikawa following them and locking the door: Saito had Netto sit on the bed and then stood in front of him while leaning both punches against the sides of his torso.

"So?"

"… I'm sorry." Netto weakly muttered.

"Didn't you say you'd grown stronger?"

"… That's…"

"Or was that an illusion you came up with?"

"… HOW CAN YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANT TO BE THERE? I ALMOST DIED! DIED! DIED! HUMANS DIE! THEY CAN'T BE REPAIRED OR REBUILT!" Netto suddenly stood up and yelled.

"I know what death is about. You're forgetting who I am."

"A NAVI WHO TRIES TO IMITATE SAITO – NIISAN! YOU YOURSELF SAID IT ON ORIOL'S HOUSE!"

"Hmpf. Alright. You've got a point there." He wasn't surprised.

"YOU DAMNED FAKE!"

Netto tried to punch Saito but he calmly stepped to the left and Netto hit the floor instead: he remained there and began to cry: Saito sighed but his annoyed mood didn't seem to change: Hikawa gulped.

"Eh… Come on, come on… The past is the past…"

"DON'T BUTT INTO THIS HIKAWA TOORU!"

"Whoa! I'm just trying…"

"TO LAUGH AT THE PITIFUL ME!"

"No! I'm trying to help!"

"Don't mix him in." Saito ordered.

"OH YEAH? NOW YOU WANNA PLAY THE BOSS?"

"Who said I was playing the boss? Your arguments are moot."

"SAYS THE MAN! WHAT ABOUT "I DON'T FIGHT TO DELETE NAVIS" YOU TOLD SEARCH MAN, HUH?"

"I was still naïve and didn't realize that was a war and not "just" a competition or a sport." He didn't lift an eyebrow either.

"Come on! You two! That's not like you! Are you sure this "bickering" is natural or is there something involved?"

Netto's PET (which had been left on the desk) beeped so Hikawa reached out for it while the two of them kept on bickering: Dr. Lartes showed up onscreen and he looked annoyed.

"Hello? Hikari – kun? Are you alright? Your chip implant feedback signals have been acting weird for a while!"

"Chip implant, sir?"

"Huh? Ah. You're Hikawa – kun. Hum. I'm Dr. Lartes. No, I'm not the family medic, I'm a researcher… You see, Hikari – kun was using a chip implant to help control his traumas and prevent them from having too damaging consequences to his persona… But now it's been acting weird for a while: what's going on?"

"I'm not sure… Saito – kun brought Netto – kun home and he began to scold him only for Netto – kun to start yelling and verbally fighting with Saito – kun…"

"…I DON'T WANT YOU AROUND! YOU'RE BUT A DAMNED FAKE!"

"Oh yeah? Ask that to Papa."

"THE OLD MAN! HE DIDN'T WANT TO ACCEPT IT SO HE CREATED AN IMITATOR AND LED THEM TO BELIEVE THEY'D PULLED SOME MIRACLE TECH TO KEEP SAITO – NIISAN ALIVE!"

"And what about Davis?"

"I DUNNO WHO YOU MEAN!"

"He was at the restaurant a while ago."

"NO! THE DAMNED RESTAURANT WAS EMPTY SAVE FOR YOU AND THE SHINIGAMI!"

"Dr. Regal wasn't the shinigami. Something's weird with you."

"SHUT UP! YOU'RE THE FREAK! SOME KIND OF MIX BETWEEN HUMAN AND ROBOT: YOU SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO EXIST!"

"Argue that with Papa and Vadous – san."

"THERE'S NO "VADOUS"! THERE'S ONLY THE DAMNED OLD MAN!"

"This isn't normal, right? Sir?"

"Sure as Hell that it isn't. I get it! The fucker."

"Twilight?"

"Yeah, Twilight! The jerk! They can't wait for their repairs to finish so…!"

"To kill the time he intends to have them fight by hijacking the chip implant device and inputting fake memories and perceptions into Netto – kun?"

"And I think he somehow exploited the "link" between them: Charles just called me to tell me what happened in the restaurant. Saito – kun would never purposely harm Hikari – kun. He's trying to split them apart: the damned jerk. It's thanks to them that you're here to begin them and that's how you return that? Damned bitch."

"What should I do?"

"Splash them with cold water: that should bring up some automatic instinct and buy me time to try to rewrite the access privileges and passwords to keep the guy out."

"A-alright!"

Hikawa left the PET on the desk and rushed to the bathroom to pick a plastic cup: he filled it with water and then rushed back to the room to throw it at their faces since they'd began pulling each other's shirts by now and looked about to start a fight.

SPLASH!

"Grah! Cold!"

"Cold!"

"Good! There's been an interruption because the chip wants to process this new input and analyze it… I'll now try to kick the control out of the kernel and bring up each security level up…! Distract them with some joke or another…!"

"Eh… Puku! Bubble Man – sama will beat those punks and he'll make the Bubble Kingdom rise with Bubble Man – sama ruling over it! Puku! And they'll invent Bubble Gear Man! Puku!" Hikawa improvised a parody imitation of Bubble Man.

"Mwah, hah, hah! Bubble Kingdom…!" Netto automatically began to laugh.

"Bubble Gear Man…! Too long! Too random!"

"Yes! Like this…! Buy me 27 seconds!"

"Huh… YIKES! PUKU! The Demon Scarecrow, DE PUKU! Run for your BUBBLE CHIPS, DE PUKU!"

"Demon Scarecrow! Sigma's parody!"

"Bubble Chips!" Saito giggled.

"Good! Another 12 seconds…!"

"Pu-ku-ku-pu! The Pu-Ku-Ku-Pu has arrived, de puku!"

"W-what's that? Some club?"

"The Bubble Club!"

"… Good! Done! I kicked the jerk out! Phew! That was close!"

"Huh? When did we get home?" Netto blinked.

"Dunno… I feel like I'm missing some memories."

"No wonder."

"Dr. Lartes? Tooru – kun?"

"What's going on?"

"The jerk was impatient so they began to toy with the chip implant taking profit that Dr. Regal was at the restaurant."

"… Oh." Both muttered.

"Luckily Hikawa – kun splashed you and then began to make you laugh in purpose to loosen the guy's hold on the kernel and I then began to rewrite all security levels before kicking them out and holding up the red card 'cause they played unfair."

"The red card! Yeah! They deserve the red card."

"That reminds me of that Meitantei Conan episode, the "Oosaka 3K", with Conan's speech to the football player he'd idolized…"

"Well. I hope this fixes it. I'll be on the lookout. Try to have some friendly time with Hikawa – kun. Later."

"Thank you, sir."

"It's nothing: it's my duty."

"Mwah, hah, hah! Hah, hah! Doc! Frankenstein wants his monster back!"

"Sigma. That joke's older than your scarecrow."

"Mwah, hah, hah! Hah, hah! Hear to Dragon's latest banner!"

"What now?" He sighed.

"Ahem! "The crown signals the fore-coming of the end and the fore-coming of the black armies"…"

"Oh come on! That's something taken out of the Meitantei Conan series in which the crow is symbolically associated with the "Black Organization", the antagonist of the series!" He fumed.

"Don't blame me!"

"No, I know his poor sight is to blame. When will he bother to go to an oculist's and get a pair of glasses? Or a pair of contacts?"

"Maybe by 2012?"

"GRFJTX!"

"Sigma! Stop meddling around: go check out on some bike gang which is using the Reverse Cyber World so that their Navis can slip from place to place undetected. They seem to be looking for something and Cosmo Man is with them so they have some connection with the jerk!"

"Yikes! Roger, Commander Omega!"

"Go - NOW!"

Sigma could be heard rushing away and Dr. Lartes sighed in relief: he then stretched.

"Good-bye."

15:33 PM (Japan Time)…

"… Alright. This seems to be the place where those confiscated "Dark Chip" boxes are stored at… You guys handle the small fry and I'll get the cargo: show them you're the pros and no – one can beat your Cyber Harley Davidson V 3.3!"

"OK, Boss!"

"Ou!"

"Go!"

"Yahoo~!"

"Intruder alert! Mugra~h!"

"Outta the way~! The HD Cyber Jerks are 'ere!"

"Reinforcements! We need… Gra~h!"

Cosmo Man led a gang of about 20 Navis having punk-like crests popping out of their heads along with random tattoos and pain across their bodies and which were riding on Cyber bikes which seemed to be an imitation of the famed Harley-Davidson bikes: they'd all drawn Super Vulcan Chips and Long Sword Chips: the group ran down a ramp and broke into a large storage building: fire-fight ensued but their power was overwhelming the security Navis: Cosmo Man merely "flew" across the air and spotted a partially camouflage opening into an upper floor: he pushed the trap-door up and found about 6 huge crates full of "Nebula Dark Chips" which looked like they hadn't been used in a long time.

"Heh. No wonder. They confiscated them right before the "Desert Man Incident" from that storage building… But they didn't know if they should dispose of them or not so…"

"So cha came to get yer ass pounded!"

"Damn. The black fool!"

"Did ya say somethin' 'bout me~? My ears are burnin' and that's my thick southern drawl speakin', Bossy~! Mwah, hah, hah!"

Sigma suddenly appeared behind Cosmo Man: he grumbled and quickly jumped to another spot of the room while the fire-fighting continued on the floor below them.

"Cosmo Buster!"

"Mwah, hah, hah! Demon Fire!"

"Huh! Cosmo Gate~!"

Cosmo Man began to attack by shooting his planetoids at Sigma but his eyes began to glow red: Cosmo Man saw it coming so he opened his "Cosmo Gate" to suck the attack in: Sigma suddenly warped and landed atop a crate thus breaking it and making the "Dark Chips" slid across the floor: some fell into the floor below through the open trap-door and Cosmo Man cursed under his breath.

"Oho! This looks like good stuff! Huh? Ugro~h!"

"Gra~oh!"

"Damn it! Those fools are going berserk one after the other! "KO" and we bothered to program them and it'll be in vain!"

"So! KO is gonna beat Rocky in 3 rounds?"

"Shut up, you barbarian!"

"By the way! Your Boss got impatient again, didn't the jerk?"

"What? Swallow Man! What happened?"

"Well… Boss tried to hijack some "chip implant" and was mumbling about "in-fighting", "fight to the death", "ghost of the past" and some random stuff… He suddenly began cursing and saying "damned Shakespearian", "damned Frankenstein" and "damned security system"… I'm not sure what he was doing but whatever it was it seemingly backfired at him. His repairs are just at 82% by now and he'll need until tomorrow's dawn to finish the most delicate spots…" Swallow Man sighed.

"Why couldn't he try to rest to begin with? Boss can be a genius but when he gets those boredom attacks then… He risks too much!"

"It's not like I could go and stop him!"

"I know. I was rumbling aloud and… HEY!"

"Huh? What?"

"The black fool! They're set fire to the other crates and there's only this left: send Cloud Man to pick it up while I keep them busy!"

"Huh! OK!"

"Mwah, hah, hah! I say doom-doom-doom!"

"Go to Hell! Cosmo Gate~!"

"Heh! Come~!"

Cosmo Man began to drop his huge planetoids and Sigma began to repel them: he suddenly hovered into the air and let one hit the floor, take it out and fall below into the ground floor: two or three roars of agony ensued and Sigma began to jump and land in a violent manner atop each to divert them and make them fall into the ground floor: Cosmo Man was getting annoyed by now.

"DAMN YOU~!"

"Oi, Cosmo! I seized the box!"

Cloud Man had appeared and he warped the box elsewhere: Cosmo Man stepped back and growled something.

"Don't worry about those Navis: they were cannon fodder!" "KO" commanded to them.

"Alright." Cosmo Man fumed.

"I'll handle the guy: you go make sure the box got there alright." Cloud Man moved forward.

"Good. Buy me some time, Cloud Man!"

"Elec Storm! Many Cloud!"

"Mwah, hah, hah. Let's go, Cloudy~! Hra~h!"

Sigma began to load energy on the central spot of his sword and then swung it to hit Cloud Man's torso: the blunt blow sent him flying across the room and he hit a column: the ceiling groaned and it looked like its stability had been compromised.

"Damn it."

He warped outside into the street and Sigma did the same: both reappeared atop a tall advertising tower nearby while the roof of the storage building collapsed: Sigma jumped towards Cloud Man but he grinned and suddenly drew a sized-down version of the head of "Gospel" which poured out reddish flames: Sigma got caught with his guard down and he was forced into a defensive pose.

"Mwah, hah, hah! These Hellish flames will soon burn this worthless world to cinders and the Makai will rise on its place~!" Cloud Man laughed like a psycho.

"Sheesh!"

Sigma plunged his sword into the ground and used it as support point to jump and begin to hit Cloud Man's torso with his knuckles and pierce his armor: Cloud Man gasped and formed a Tank Cannon.

"Tank Cannon!"

The blast hit Sigma and Cloud Man took profit of the recoil to escape: Sigma landed on the ground and retrieved his sword while grumbling and looking at some burn marks over his body.

"Hmpf! Like that would actually harm me…"

"Not you but any other opponent…" Omega warned.

"Huh! Good point, Commander Omega."

"So. "KO" does exist. We'll need to dig deeper and see what happens next: but at least the jerk won't be able to make a move until tomorrow at the very earliest… And this time around we'll get 'em…!"

"Yeah! And that's 'cause the good guys win in the end! Let's go~!"