Chapter 8 – Kozo's Story
::The First Rockman EXE/New Generation Chapter::
"Oh, gods, where should I begin? Well, I'd start at the beginning, but... to tell you the truth, Garlyle, I'm not sure myself. See, I don't remember much before I was... nine, I think... No, must have been about eleven or so that I can start to remember things after. So I'm not even sure who my family is, but... all I know is that my name is Kozo Grausherra. Actually, Kozo's just my nickname, it means 'urchin'. Not sure what my real first name is...
"Anyway, truth be told, I was pretty much an urchin where I came from. I lived as long as I could remember in an orphanage just outside of a large city known as Akihara. It was just me, and my friends, and our Pets...
"Err... P.E.T.s, I mean. Net Navis. Digital aides, like Falcon here... Say hello, Falcon.
"Hello"
"Good. Anyway, I grew up in cramped conditions, with crabs for roommates, though maybe it was because I kept sneaking their food whenever I was hungry. So I was a bit greedy, so sue me! Anyway, one day about a half year or so ago, in my time, anyway, I got kicked out of the orphanage after... umm, it's a long story... You want me to tell it anyway? If you insist...
"Well, okay, one of my roommates was this older teen named Kihachi. Anyway, me and Kihachi, we were pretty good friends when we chose to be, but most of the time we preferred to remain alone, going our separate ways, and we both understood that. It was easier for us, and we never bothered each other unless we both wanted a bit of friendship for a while, just to relax.
"He was, about the closest thing I had to a friend. Yeah, that's right. Was.
"Kihachi was supposed to have been adopted on that day, but when his new parents were supposed to come and get him, they never came. Later that night, he found out they had become involved in a car crash on the way, and never made it...
Garlyle cut in. "Car crash?"
"You don't know what a car is? It's like an automatic horse-drawn carriage, I suppose. Just a lot faster. And there's no horses. And they're bad for getting into crashes with other cars, and a lot of the time people get hurt or killed.
"Okay, enough about that. Anyway, I felt really bad for him, so I went to him to try and cheer him up, because honestly I felt like he needed it. But when I found him... umm...
Kozo sniffled. "Sorry, this is hard for me to say...
"Back up in my room, I saw him slit his own throat. Gods, I still don't want to think about it... I had been a bit late in trying to cheer the kid up, maybe if I had only been just a bit sooner... It still bugs me that I didn't do anything but...
"Anyway, I sat and cried for a while... what? Don't tell me you've never done it! ...Thought so. And next thing I remember, I had found this note that he had written... I still remember every word of it... it was written to me, freakishly, and it simply said, "I'm never going to have a future, but maybe... maybe someday you'll find yours, Kozo..."
"And I pocketed the note, and the next thing I know, the head of the Academy comes in, wanting to cheer up Kihachi, and he sees the slit throat, and of course thinks the worse and instantly starts to accuse me of having done it. And I'm crying out "No, no, I swear, he did it himself!" but he won't listen to me.
"So I pull out the note and he just reads it, shreds it, and says that I forged it to try and keep myself from looking guilty. So I tell him I had no reason to kill him and that he was my friend, and he goes into some story about how I was jealous of his age and how he was picked over me to be adopted and how I've always been a kid who lived off of rage, and...
"Umm... Well, I think you get the idea. I lost the fight in the end, and I got kicked out, so I ended up wandering the streets, trying to find somebody to take me in. Luckily for me, I only ended up going about two weeks before I was found...
"It was by a lonely young man, only about nineteen or twenty years old, named Acentine Darass... and when I met him, he took me in because he felt sorry for me. Great guy, red spiky hair, strong body, looked like the most handsome thing you can imagine, and...
Garlyle spoke up, "I have the feeling he did more than just take you in."
Kozo started, jumping. "What do you mean by that, anyway? Listen, just because I lived with him for about four months and we were both lonely and gods, I already miss him... I wonder if he's realised I'm gone?"
Garlyle's eyebrow raised. "I was right then. You did..."
Kozo looked nervous. "Now hold on, there, Garlyle. I'm serious, we've never done anything, geez! How the hell would you know about that kind of thing, anyway, kid?"
Garlyle laughed. "I'm not as innocent as most children my age. But continue anyway."
"Umm... well, yeah, I think you kinda get the next part. We did fall in love, you're right. But we had hard times. He barely made enough to pay the rent and keep his home, and with me added to the mix it was harder. I helped in any way I could. Then the perfect opportunity showed up.
"They were have a Navi Battling, or netbattling, competition. The winner would get a job with a Net Company which was always in the front lines of cybernetic technology... Does that make sense?
Garlyle nodded.
"Wow. Oh, sorry. Anyway, me and Falcon trained up a long time. Funny story, actually, I've had Falcon as long as I can remember, I didn't buy him or have him handed down to me or anything, I think...
"Okay, now I'm just blabbering. Anyway, I wanted to win and get the job so that I could help Acentine with everything... I was feeling really bad every time I heard him muttering about how high the bills had become since I had moved in. You know, right? I just felt really damn guilty about it all...
"Enough about that. So I went with Falcon and entered the tournament, a few days before I ended up here, but I'll get to that. It was really hard. There was a couple basic, uncustomized navis, but they were operated by stars tactically... Of course, I've always prided myself on what I didn't have, oddly enough. I was using the most basic weaponry available, stuff far below what everybody else had, but I had used it so long that it was becoming more powerful then what they had, simply because me and Falcon knew how to use it...
"Umm, anyway, I was lucky because I was one of the youngest, so everybody thought I'd be an easy victory! Ha! That was the funniest part of it all, seeing the look on the faces of some people that were twenty or thirty, when I, this no-body who had never appeared in any tournaments before, suddenly whipped them from one arena to the next...
"Ha ha ha... Okay, sorry, I get carried away some times
Garlyle smirked, understanding exactly what Kozo had meant by that himself.
"Anyway, long story shortened once again, I won the tournament in the end. The last battle really put my mind to the test, and seriously, both me and Falcon fainted in sync in exhaustion after the battle was over. But we had one, against a thirty-year-old netbattling genius named Juru, or something like that, and his Navi 'Quint'...
"Needless to say, I was happy about it, and after returning to Acentine with the good news... gods, if only you had've seen the look on his face when I told him what I'd done and where I'd be working! He thought I was lying...
"You're blabbering again" Garlyle pointed out.
"Oh?" Kozo blinked, then smiled. "So I am! Anyway, the next day, I went to work, and found out they were going to do experiments with a new cybernetic system that was supposed to allow real human beings to enter the cyberworld! Could you imagine that?
"...No, I suppose you can't... but truthfully, I nearly jumped out of my skin with excitement. I would be the first human being in the cyberworld! Seriously! They had tested it already on some animals, and had succeeded, so they were ready to try on humans. There was this whole debate about 'personal risks' and all that other stuff, but I really didn't care. Wasn't like I had anything else to do with my life, and if I passed up that opportunity...
"So they took me to this small room, where there was a single chair, and they strapped me into it and told me to relax. It was hard, because there were a ton of people watching me and there was the buzz of tons of machines monitoring all kinds of things on my body... my heart rate, my blood pressure, even ones just to test that I was still whole. I had brought a bag with me, just in case, and Falcon was at my side. Apparently, he'd leave my PET once we got in space, meaning I could finally meet him face to face. Perhaps that excited me most.
"Then, all of a sudden, somebody called out that it was beginning. I braced myself, and slowly I felt something really weird happen.
"It felt like something was pulling at me. I closed my eyes, and it felt like my body was bending. And everybody around me started freaking out, as I practically twisted into myself. Gods, it hurt like hell! I know I was screaming at that moment.
"Then, suddenly, it stopped hurting, but I found myself unconscious... and then the next thing I knew, I was here."
"That's it?" Garlyle asked.
Kozo nodded.
"Then you were pulled through dimensions, not through times, I think... but... I wouldn't say you weren't" Garlyle shrugged.
Kozo looked confused for a moment, then it clued in. "Well... I don't care. All I want is to get home to Acentine..."
::The First Rockman EXE/New Generation Chapter::
"Oh, gods, where should I begin? Well, I'd start at the beginning, but... to tell you the truth, Garlyle, I'm not sure myself. See, I don't remember much before I was... nine, I think... No, must have been about eleven or so that I can start to remember things after. So I'm not even sure who my family is, but... all I know is that my name is Kozo Grausherra. Actually, Kozo's just my nickname, it means 'urchin'. Not sure what my real first name is...
"Anyway, truth be told, I was pretty much an urchin where I came from. I lived as long as I could remember in an orphanage just outside of a large city known as Akihara. It was just me, and my friends, and our Pets...
"Err... P.E.T.s, I mean. Net Navis. Digital aides, like Falcon here... Say hello, Falcon.
"Hello"
"Good. Anyway, I grew up in cramped conditions, with crabs for roommates, though maybe it was because I kept sneaking their food whenever I was hungry. So I was a bit greedy, so sue me! Anyway, one day about a half year or so ago, in my time, anyway, I got kicked out of the orphanage after... umm, it's a long story... You want me to tell it anyway? If you insist...
"Well, okay, one of my roommates was this older teen named Kihachi. Anyway, me and Kihachi, we were pretty good friends when we chose to be, but most of the time we preferred to remain alone, going our separate ways, and we both understood that. It was easier for us, and we never bothered each other unless we both wanted a bit of friendship for a while, just to relax.
"He was, about the closest thing I had to a friend. Yeah, that's right. Was.
"Kihachi was supposed to have been adopted on that day, but when his new parents were supposed to come and get him, they never came. Later that night, he found out they had become involved in a car crash on the way, and never made it...
Garlyle cut in. "Car crash?"
"You don't know what a car is? It's like an automatic horse-drawn carriage, I suppose. Just a lot faster. And there's no horses. And they're bad for getting into crashes with other cars, and a lot of the time people get hurt or killed.
"Okay, enough about that. Anyway, I felt really bad for him, so I went to him to try and cheer him up, because honestly I felt like he needed it. But when I found him... umm...
Kozo sniffled. "Sorry, this is hard for me to say...
"Back up in my room, I saw him slit his own throat. Gods, I still don't want to think about it... I had been a bit late in trying to cheer the kid up, maybe if I had only been just a bit sooner... It still bugs me that I didn't do anything but...
"Anyway, I sat and cried for a while... what? Don't tell me you've never done it! ...Thought so. And next thing I remember, I had found this note that he had written... I still remember every word of it... it was written to me, freakishly, and it simply said, "I'm never going to have a future, but maybe... maybe someday you'll find yours, Kozo..."
"And I pocketed the note, and the next thing I know, the head of the Academy comes in, wanting to cheer up Kihachi, and he sees the slit throat, and of course thinks the worse and instantly starts to accuse me of having done it. And I'm crying out "No, no, I swear, he did it himself!" but he won't listen to me.
"So I pull out the note and he just reads it, shreds it, and says that I forged it to try and keep myself from looking guilty. So I tell him I had no reason to kill him and that he was my friend, and he goes into some story about how I was jealous of his age and how he was picked over me to be adopted and how I've always been a kid who lived off of rage, and...
"Umm... Well, I think you get the idea. I lost the fight in the end, and I got kicked out, so I ended up wandering the streets, trying to find somebody to take me in. Luckily for me, I only ended up going about two weeks before I was found...
"It was by a lonely young man, only about nineteen or twenty years old, named Acentine Darass... and when I met him, he took me in because he felt sorry for me. Great guy, red spiky hair, strong body, looked like the most handsome thing you can imagine, and...
Garlyle spoke up, "I have the feeling he did more than just take you in."
Kozo started, jumping. "What do you mean by that, anyway? Listen, just because I lived with him for about four months and we were both lonely and gods, I already miss him... I wonder if he's realised I'm gone?"
Garlyle's eyebrow raised. "I was right then. You did..."
Kozo looked nervous. "Now hold on, there, Garlyle. I'm serious, we've never done anything, geez! How the hell would you know about that kind of thing, anyway, kid?"
Garlyle laughed. "I'm not as innocent as most children my age. But continue anyway."
"Umm... well, yeah, I think you kinda get the next part. We did fall in love, you're right. But we had hard times. He barely made enough to pay the rent and keep his home, and with me added to the mix it was harder. I helped in any way I could. Then the perfect opportunity showed up.
"They were have a Navi Battling, or netbattling, competition. The winner would get a job with a Net Company which was always in the front lines of cybernetic technology... Does that make sense?
Garlyle nodded.
"Wow. Oh, sorry. Anyway, me and Falcon trained up a long time. Funny story, actually, I've had Falcon as long as I can remember, I didn't buy him or have him handed down to me or anything, I think...
"Okay, now I'm just blabbering. Anyway, I wanted to win and get the job so that I could help Acentine with everything... I was feeling really bad every time I heard him muttering about how high the bills had become since I had moved in. You know, right? I just felt really damn guilty about it all...
"Enough about that. So I went with Falcon and entered the tournament, a few days before I ended up here, but I'll get to that. It was really hard. There was a couple basic, uncustomized navis, but they were operated by stars tactically... Of course, I've always prided myself on what I didn't have, oddly enough. I was using the most basic weaponry available, stuff far below what everybody else had, but I had used it so long that it was becoming more powerful then what they had, simply because me and Falcon knew how to use it...
"Umm, anyway, I was lucky because I was one of the youngest, so everybody thought I'd be an easy victory! Ha! That was the funniest part of it all, seeing the look on the faces of some people that were twenty or thirty, when I, this no-body who had never appeared in any tournaments before, suddenly whipped them from one arena to the next...
"Ha ha ha... Okay, sorry, I get carried away some times
Garlyle smirked, understanding exactly what Kozo had meant by that himself.
"Anyway, long story shortened once again, I won the tournament in the end. The last battle really put my mind to the test, and seriously, both me and Falcon fainted in sync in exhaustion after the battle was over. But we had one, against a thirty-year-old netbattling genius named Juru, or something like that, and his Navi 'Quint'...
"Needless to say, I was happy about it, and after returning to Acentine with the good news... gods, if only you had've seen the look on his face when I told him what I'd done and where I'd be working! He thought I was lying...
"You're blabbering again" Garlyle pointed out.
"Oh?" Kozo blinked, then smiled. "So I am! Anyway, the next day, I went to work, and found out they were going to do experiments with a new cybernetic system that was supposed to allow real human beings to enter the cyberworld! Could you imagine that?
"...No, I suppose you can't... but truthfully, I nearly jumped out of my skin with excitement. I would be the first human being in the cyberworld! Seriously! They had tested it already on some animals, and had succeeded, so they were ready to try on humans. There was this whole debate about 'personal risks' and all that other stuff, but I really didn't care. Wasn't like I had anything else to do with my life, and if I passed up that opportunity...
"So they took me to this small room, where there was a single chair, and they strapped me into it and told me to relax. It was hard, because there were a ton of people watching me and there was the buzz of tons of machines monitoring all kinds of things on my body... my heart rate, my blood pressure, even ones just to test that I was still whole. I had brought a bag with me, just in case, and Falcon was at my side. Apparently, he'd leave my PET once we got in space, meaning I could finally meet him face to face. Perhaps that excited me most.
"Then, all of a sudden, somebody called out that it was beginning. I braced myself, and slowly I felt something really weird happen.
"It felt like something was pulling at me. I closed my eyes, and it felt like my body was bending. And everybody around me started freaking out, as I practically twisted into myself. Gods, it hurt like hell! I know I was screaming at that moment.
"Then, suddenly, it stopped hurting, but I found myself unconscious... and then the next thing I knew, I was here."
"That's it?" Garlyle asked.
Kozo nodded.
"Then you were pulled through dimensions, not through times, I think... but... I wouldn't say you weren't" Garlyle shrugged.
Kozo looked confused for a moment, then it clued in. "Well... I don't care. All I want is to get home to Acentine..."