Okay, I'm just about finished. I'm gonna be putting up two chapters this time, this one and the one to follow. I've already finished the next chapter (a third one, not one of the two I'm posting today) and if I'm lucky I'll get it by Friday, Monday at the latest. (I hope) I appreciate all the review's I've been getting and all the help I've gotten from QS so far (Really, Thanks! ^__^;). Skip the disclaimers...enjoy!

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"Well, Naota. Is there something that you'd like to tell me?"

"No."

"This is obviously the work of MM," Amarao said. I sat up in the bed and looked at him. "And it could only have come here through the N-O field. Through your head."

"So you just immediately put the blame on me," I said calmly.

"They used you for a reason last time Naota. I have no reason to believe that this isn't the case again."

"I'm telling you, it wasn't me."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really."

Amarao paced back and forth momentarily with his hand on his chin, each time turning his head to make sure he still had his eyes locked on the creature outside. "So it's just a coincidence that this thing appears around the same time that you broke the eyebrows, huh?"

"I guess."

"You guess. You know what this means don't you? Mabase is doomed and it's your fault."

"Did you come all the way over here just to bitch at me?" I asked as I stood from the bed. Once I stood and the covers fell off of me, it became dreadfully apparent to me, thanks to the way Amarao's face twisted, that I didn't have any clothes on. Immediately, I made a dash for the closet and hid behind the safety of its door to dress.

"What were you doing last night?" Amarao asked.

"None of your business," I answered. "So what are we going to do about that thing?"

"I don't know," he said. I stepped out of the closet, dressed in a light blue-hooded sweater and a pair of brown shorts and socks. I noticed that he was looking out the window again. "The thing is just standing there. It's not doing anything."

"Huh?" I went over to the window to look and just like he said it wasn't doing anything—just standing there, over by the pile of rubble that used to be the Iron Fist. "When did it get here?" I asked.

"You would know," he said. "It came out of your head."

"I already told you that it wasn't me!"

"Yeah, right."

"Okay. Let me ask you this then," I said. "When did you first notice that thing?"

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"I'm gonna prove to you that it didn't come out of my head. So just answer."

"Okay fine. I guess it was, uh...about four this morning when we spotted it." He crossed his arms and looked at me.

"Okay. At four this morning, two hours ago, I was in my bed, asleep. If that huge thing came out of my head, while I was here in my room, wouldn't my room be destroyed and wouldn't there be a huge hole in my wall and giant footsteps leading from here over to where the thing is now?" After that, I just sat back and smirked, watching Amarao's cocky expression melt into a glare. That really shut him up.

A long silence fell over us. Amarao glared with a twitching eyebrow at me while I peered past him and out the window at the giant figure in the background.

Canti. I remember him well. He was the first of the many things that would eventually come out of my head, his arrival the most painful of the bunch. Unlike everything else that came around, Canti didn't seem to come to senselessly destroy, and at first he didn't seem to have a purpose at all. However, soon it became clear that he was needed to fight the other creatures that came through the N-O field, and I was his unwilling aid in it. Canti would come and absorb me; he was using that power, Atomsk's power that was inside of me, and while I was inside of him, I just watched it all. I could see everything that was happening. I saw it through Canti's eyes, as if I was Canti himself, but I had no control over anything and when it ended, I wouldn't remember a thing. But all those memories came back to me that day—the day when I broke out and Atomsk took over.

Seeing Canti, this Canti, now made me wonder if it was in fact here to destroy. I noticed that it wasn't moving at all and was facing in this direction, as if it were looking at me. Was it waiting for me?

"So, now what?" I asked. Amarao looked up at me and shrugged.

"If it really wasn't you this thing came from," he said, "then who?"

"I don't know," I said shrugging.

Amarao began to pace the room and scratch his head. "Let me think," he said. "There have only been three known accounts of N-O activity in Mabase." Amarao continued to pace the room, making no eye contact with me at all, just looking down and holding his chin. "If I subtract you from the suspects," He said pointing. "Then that leaves..."

"Who?" I said anxiously.

"Somebody," he said.

"Somebody?" I said sarcastically.

"Yeah, it's definitely somebody." He continued to pace the room but at a slower rate as he tried to think harder, I could tell by the vein that was popping out on his forehead.

"Does this person have a name?" I asked.

"Of course she does!" Amarao snapped. "I just can't remember it."

She? "Well what's she look like? Maybe I know her."

"Uh, let me think." I let him think for about five minutes before he finally came up with a description. "She's a girl..." I couldn't help but fall at that. "She's about your height, I think; she goes to your school too."

"A classmate?"

"Yeah but after the incident she was just fine, always happy and smiling; not a care in the world. If it's the same person, something bad must have happened."

"Something bad?"

"The N-O field will only work properly on people whose mental health status is at a low level, like a person who suffers from chronic depression. Whoever this person is, something must have just recently happened that would screw up their head."

A classmate with mental problems; that just about covers everybody in the school. Trying to narrow it down to a female classmate doesn't help either. I didn't know any too well outside of Roka and Tatami, some of Ninamori's friends, and Ninamori herself—and that's when it hit me.

I remember that time. Ninamori was having problems at home with her parents and she took her anger out on me, making me dress up like an idiot for the play. She showed up at my house with her problems and all I did was yell at her. She left and the next time I saw her, Canti and I were saving her butt from the machine, one that came from her head. Thinking about it now, how I always yell and scream at Ninamori and give her the cold shoulder, not to mention what just recently happened, she'd be the perfect target for the N- O field considering mine was blocked.

"That Ninamori girl!" blurted Amarao. "The mayor's daughter. That's her name right?"

"Yes."

"Well, then it must have been her."

"I guess so," I said gloomily.

Amarao looked at me and twitched his eyebrow a little. "What's wrong with you?" he said. "For once you're not disagreeing with me."

"No, I just remember. That's all." Amarao said nothing. "So now what? We know who it is but what difference does that make? It won't make that thing go away just because we know where it came from."

"No, but we can prevent anything else from coming through."

"What?" I asked. "Those eyebrow things? She'll never wear those."

"She'll have to, it's the only way." After that, Amarao turned around and headed out my bedroom door and down toward the stairs. I hesitated but followed.

"Okay, but I have one question." Amarao stopped and looked up at me. "Why can't I get this other brow off of me?" I said as I began to futilely pull at it.

"They don't come off," he said.

"They did before."

"Yeah, but before I didn't put super glue on the underside."

/_\

Now I was riding shotgun to Amarao in a small American vehicle. He called it a Benz, I believe. It was pretty fast and rode smoothly, even on the bumpy parts of the road. At this rate we'd be at Ninamori's in no time, but I had something to ask before we got there.

"Hey, Amarao," I said laying back calmly in my seat.

"Yeah?"

"About what you said before."

"What did I say?"

"When you were mumbling about how many people have had N-O fields in Mabase."

"Okay, what about it?" Amarao continued driving, never once glancing over at me.

"You mentioned that there was a third person besides Ninamori and me..."

"No, I didn't," he said quickly.

"Yeah. Well, not in detail, but you did say that there were three. Who was the third?" Amarao slowed the car a little and looked down in his seat nervously. "That was over twenty years ago, Naota. I doubt it's anyone you'd know."

"I think I know who it is," I said. "I just want to hear you say it." Amarao immediately slammed the breaks and looked at me.

"How'd you find out? Who told you?" He said grabbing my shirt.

"Actually I didn't know, but I do now," he raised an eyebrow at me. "Well, you got all worked up for nothing. It's like you're trying to cover it up." He let me go and moved back over to his seat.

"It was about twenty years ago," He said. "And I was younger then than you are now."

"What happened?"

"Something similar to what happened to you. I got this horn one day and then this strange girl showed up at school, always staring at me. I though it was just because I always had ugly hats on in school, trying to hide the horn but that wasn't it. She showed up at my house one day and started cooking me dinner; she tried to seduce me and she was real interested in the horn once she saw it."

"Who was she?" I asked.

"I don't know. I never got her name or even found out where she came from. After the horn went away, she left."

"It went away? Nothing came out?"

"Oh yeah, something came out, but nothing like what came from you."

"What came out?" He didn't answer that question; he was too busy looking around.

"Where did it go?" he said nervously.

"Where'd what go?"

"That thing." He pointed up toward the hill where the giant Canti had been but was no longer. We both began to look frantically all around us but neither of us found a thing, and without a word, Amarao restarted the car and continued on at full speed toward the mayor's place.

/_\

Once we got there, our confidence that we came to the right place was reinforced by the huge hole in the left side of the mansion and the path of destruction that lead away and toward the hill from there. Besides that face, we knew something was wrong when we saw the police line around the house and the press trying to storm the front gate but being held back by cops.

Amarao climbed assertively out of the car and stared into the crowd before he began his march toward the building. I rushed nervously out of the car and ran around to catch up with him.

"We're going inside," he said to me as I got to his side.

"How? The police aren't letting anyone in," I said back.

"I'll handle that."

We continued to approach and as we got to the crowd, we were spotted. The people began to immediately make a path for us to walk through, not saying a word. While I walked through behind Amarao, I looked around, nervous and confused. It didn't make sense but in a way it didn't need to.

When we got to the front, Amarao took a badge from his pocket and flashed it at the police. They grinned and stepped aside, letting us through but staring at me as I passed the line.

From there we ran, in a huge rush to find Ninamori. I didn't know which way to go in that huge place but Amarao seemed to know his way around pretty well. He led the way straight to where the mayor and Ninamori were.

"Amarao, you're here," the mayor said as we approached. "Who's the little guy?"

"My help," Amarao said. "Where is she?" The mayor then directed us over to a large bed draped by white curtains. On it was Ninamori, out cold.

"How long has she been like that?" I asked.

"All morning," the mayor answered. Then he turned his attention back to Amarao. "What's wrong with her?"

"Her body is probably weak after what happened." Amarao leaned over her and stuck a pair of the eyebrows on her face. "I need you to do me a favor."

"What's that?" the mayor said.

"Go make a call to my agency. Tell Kitsurubami to get over here."

"Can't your little guy do it?"

"No. I need him for something." The mayor nodded and hesitantly walked out the door into the hallway crowded with police. Amarao then turned to look at me and called me over to the bed.

I looked down at Ninamori who lay sleeping peacefully under the covers; in my mind I knew that this was my fault, but I also knew that I couldn't say that, especially to Amarao.

Amarao leaned over Ninamori and began to shake her fretfully but to no avail—she didn't stir in the slightest way. "Okay," he then said. "Wake her up."

"Me?"

"Yes, you."

"If all that shaking won't wake her, what can I do?"

"Just think," he said. Just think. What did that mean? I don't know, but I did exactly what he told me to do: I stopped and took a moment to think. How do you wake a sleeping girl?

The first thing I came up with was to do exactly as a prince did in a fairy tale I once heard. All I had to do was lean in and kiss and she should wake. I didn't want to try that and luckily, I came up with a better option before Amarao bothered me again.

"What are you doing?" Amarao asked as I walked over to a shelf filled with books, picking one up.

"I'm gonna try something," I said. I walked back over to the bed and held up the book I picked up—"How Stuff Works"—over her head.

"What are you doing?" Amarao yelled again as he grabbed me by my wrists. "I said wake her, not hurt her." As he reached to take the book from me I released it and let it drop on her face. She immediately popped up.

/_\

"Ow!" she said in a whiney voice as she began to cry. "What'd you do that for?" She didn't even look when she said that. I don't even think she knew it was me until she looked. "Naota?"

I smiled faintly and waved at her. "Hi..." Without a word she jumped up in the bed and threw herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck tightly. I instinctively caught her and put my arms around her, but I was very confused. I looked at Amarao and he just smiled back at me.

It was pretty quiet for a moment but that only lasted until we heard a loud crash and the ground began to shake as if something huge was walking around. We knew what it was.

Amarao and I looked at each other but didn't say anything. I guess we were both in shock because we didn't know what to do. I know that was the case with me anyway. Neither of us even moved while the shaking continued, at least until we heard someone speak.

"It'll be here in a minute," she said. Amarao and I both turned to see Kitsurubami standing and staring out of the window in the direction the crashing was coming from. I also noticed that she again had Haruko's bass guitar slung comfortably over her shoulder.

"When did she get here?" I mumbled to myself.

I think she heard me mumbling because she turned straight around and looked directly at me. "It's time we go to work." ~