Little Reason.

It had been just over three days since Kaori had been released from hospital. She looked at the second hand on her clock, seven seconds and three days. The hospital had told her that nothing was wrong, she had just blacked out. Hideki had carried her to hospital where she had been unconscious for two hours then stayed over night for observation and left in the morning. Sakae and Jet were with Minoru, she had asked him to look after them for her. What she wanted to do needed privacy. It's not a pretty thing to watch, someone drinking themselves into forgetfulness. The brown bottle tipped up again and the bitter liquid rushed through her mouth and down her throat. Draining it empty she threw it at her wall, it broke, the pieces scattered and joined others who had suffered similar fates. Another bottle clawed to her hand and she drank. She drank not for enjoyment but for the desperate seen to see the curved bottom of a bottle. Each glass husk brought her closer to an end. Of what she didn't know. But she just needed to end this. The numbing liquid lashed through her blood and poured through her brain, it made her slow and the lack of sleep drew deep lines under her eyes. Her violet eyes watched the second hand twitch nervously under her gaze. It was now three days and two minutes since she had been released. She thought for a moment, that meant two days, six hours and eleven minuets since she had been fired and tossed out of her house. All she had now was a clock, a wall and her last Asahi beer. Living in an alley, that was how the great Kaori Meada was going to end it all, the only girl to have excelled through Kiyonzono, in twenty years. The girl who started her promising career in persacom manufacturing at PCN at only 16. The girl who now lived in the streets too embarrassed to tell her friends what had happened. The last beer sank through her and she threw it, it showered over her in a blessed rained of glass, if the fragments dug into her she didn't notice, the beer had seeped to far into her for her to notice such things. Then she dug out of her pocket the last thing she owner and passed the watch to the stranger.

"Thank you." She slurred.

"It's ok, You're the one getting screwed, I could get much more for this at the pawn shop."

She stuck her finger up at him and wished she'd had another bottle to throw at him. But that had been the deal she'd made. The sweet little girl who grew up on the good side of Tokyo had made a deal with a dealer. The watch had been the only thing she had taken from her house, the only thing that hadn't belonged to the company, it wasn't a Rolex but it was good. Now all it amounted too were the five splits and the black lighter in her hand. The took one out of the bag and looked at it, the paper wrapped around tightly at the end a roach at the other, she stuck it into her mouth and tired to light it. The wind was trapped inside the alley and it snapped at the little light the flint produced. Again and again she clicked until finally it gave birth to a small yellow flame she lit the spliff and took a long drag. She wondered why they called it Skunk, it didn't smell that bad, she's smelt skunk. It smelt of grass and moss, reminding her of summer where they had made bird's nest from heaps of dried grass on the playing field behind her first school. Idle thinking of that really but it was better than other things she supposed. She thought about what she was doing and wondered if it wasn't just a bit melodramatic? But then when Freya had found out she had killed herself in a sense, Kaori couldn't work out if that was better or worse. Taking another toxic breath she sunk down into the brick in the alley. The smoke was thick and comforting, she didn't feel cold anymore. It swam through her brain and fogged her, she felt like there was nothing inside her but the thick all consuming smoke of marijuana.

"Kaori!" Mr Naruda yelled.

"Wot?" Kaori slurred back already on her seventh beer.

"You didn't come into work again. I came here cos I thought something was wrong!"

"No nothings wrong, I'm just getting' pissed." She slumped over and laughed from in-between her arms.

"This is the third day you've missed."

"I know. I'm a genius!"

"When do you intend to come back to work?"

"Never." She got up and stood in front of him swaying with drink. "Why the hell would I want to come back to work for a dick like you. All you do it sit at your big fancy desk while that cute little robot of your prances around in a short skirt for nothing but your amusement. Why I bet you sleep with her, don't you?"

"Kaori I'm warning you, If you don't stop now and apologise I'll fire you and then you won't be able to live here anymore."

"You can't fire me because I quit, and as far as this hell-hole you 'call' an apartment I'd rather live on the street!"

Kaori laughed at the irony of that statement now she was in this alley, she kept on laughed and found that she couldn't stop.

Jet looked out the window the little persacom hadn't been happy since Kaori had gone missing, Minoru had taken him on a visit to see her to cheer him up and found a new tenant. Apparently she had been fired, no one knew where she was. Jet sighed and looked back at Minoru.

"No-luck?" He asked. Minoru had been doing searches on her since. Minoru shook her head.

"I'm sure she'll be ok."

"No,-I-don't-think-she-will-this-time. Kaori-has-been-left-by-evenryone-I-don't-think-she-can-take-this-any-more."

"What about you, you never left her?"

"It's-not-the-same. I'm-cute-and-useful-but-not-real-company. I-can't-hug-her. Can't-hold-her-hand -and-everyone-knowns-that-hand-held-units-can't-have-complex-personalities. Even-I-know-that-no-matter-how-much-we-were-friends-we-could-never-be-the-same. I-just-hope-that-she'll-be-able-to-have-relationships-with-other-people. Before-Shinji-there-were-a-few-real-guys-but-she-would-not-except-their-persacoms-I-don't-think-she-coould-be-with-a-guy-with-a-com."

Minoru looked out into the city and saw that it was starting to rain.

Kaori bent over and was sick, her stomach heaved again and again and slowly only a trickle of spit and bile. Her throat was raw, then the rain came. It's sheet fell over the city and thankfully washed away the disgusting liquid that threatened to make her sick again. It was all that drink she decided and most probably the pot as well, especially as it had been her first time. The rain brought the smell of freshness with it. Kaori sat back and let it run into her. Her clothes weighted down against her skin and her hair plastered down on her forehead, she moved the hair from her left eye and it blinked un-used to this much light. It was violet like it's counted part, the pupils dilated to black pits. The sun went down to her right making the clouds red even where it rained. It seemed to Kaori that the sky was bleeding. She thought she heard a voice call her name, she couldn't really be sure, it sounded familiar but maybe it wasn't. A boy's, then a girls, a sentence came to her mind at that voice. Her eyes starting to shut now. "Lighter, you sound lighter." She mumbled then passed out.

Kaori woke up in abed, not her own, but a bed. For a moment she panicked, like those first seconds when you wake up on holiday not knowing why you're not in your bed. It was the smell she recognised first, though the sight would come not soon after, the smell of Chitose Hibiya told her she was in her spare bed.

"Tea?" Chitose asked. Kaori shook her head, her throat hurt too much to speak. "Coffee then? Water? Juice?" Kaori shook to each one of them. She didn't want to be satisfied, not now. Chitose had let her sleep but now enough was enough. "Kaori I think you should go thank Chi and Hideki for bringing you here."

"Chi? Yes lighter, lighter than Elda." She got up and noticed she was wearing clothes that were not her own. They had belonged to Freya, a black dress with a large collar tied with white down the front. She must have been awake while Hibiya had dressed her but couldn't remember, she remembered waking up in her shirt and jeans, but there was a smell. Sick? She dismissed these thoughts and walked the small distance to Hideki's place. Chi answered, Kaori bowed and thanked her. Chi looked at the dress with a little shock.

"Freya." Kaori mumbled, and nodded her head. "Chi, thank you, and Hideki." Again she bowed, then shuffled back to her place. Back inside she sat at the table with Hibiya her face unable to show anything that could be an emotion.

"What would you like to do?" Hibiya asked.

"Chitose?"

"Yes?"

"Do you have a computer?"

"Yes."

"Wires? Solder? Tools?"

"Left over form the lab yes. Why?"

"I'd like to do some work. Get my brain working again." Hibiya was over joyed. She should not have been.

A few weeks passed, Jet and Sakae were returned to a rather distracted Kaori, once again she set to work with a feverish intent. She would tell no one what it was but by the mass of incredibly small computer chips she made from hand it was something very complex. Jet and Sakae were taken into her confidence and joined her in the intense work that was to be done. In a little less than a month, it had a structure, two ears, the shape of a cats, black on top white on the bottom. Like a persacoms. Minoru watched with Hibiya and Chi as she placed them on her head to make a fit. Then Minoru guessed what they could be.

"She once told me that she was working on making a persacom's ears work the same as a humans. That would get her back into working with any persacom company in the world." He guessed wrong. After this no one bothered to look at the data that she constantly unloaded into the E.A.R units.

It was late, everyone was in bed, when Kaori fitted the ear's to her, pins shot receivers down into her brain, it hurt but only for a second, she'd done it before in the PCN tech room, moving a persacom around with the control of her own brain. But this was different. Electric impulses ran through her head, screaming through the soft brain tissues until they became under control. The second that she activated the programme. Kima woke up.

Immediately he recognised the same person contacting him.

"Hello."

"Hello." He replied again.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Yes, you were the one who asked me about persacom's emotions."

"That is true. Tell me Kima what did you do when the programme was activated late time?"

"I trusted Hideki and hoped that he would love Chi. I hoped right."

"What if Hideki had not loved Chi?"

"I wouldn't be able to love Dita anymore."

"Dita?" She asked. "The persacom created to protect you?"

"Yes."

"Well I'm sorry Kima but take one last look at her, because you won't recognise her in the morning." Then she was gone.

Chi felt the programme start before anyone else did, probably because she had felt it before, with a start she woke up Hideki.

"She's going to activate the programme. The programme that Chi nearly started. She's going to make it so that no persacom will be able to recognise anyone." It was Freya and not Chi, Hideki knew that at once. He got to his feet and still in his boxers ran to Hibiya's apartment. He banged on the door. Chitose woke up and went right past the guess bedroom to the door, but of course couldn't hear anything strange.

"Where's Kaori?" Hideki asked. Hibiya showed him through. She looked like a persacom from where they stood. Her hair charged with electricity stood in the air and seemed to wave about, the two cat ears made her look like a dark Chi. Tears streamed from her eyes and seemed to float in the charged air. Kima and Dita bounded their way to her but knew they would be to late, they were the other side of Tokyo, no way they would get to her. Kima couldn't tear his eyes away from Dita knowing that at any moment he might not know who she was.

"Kaori!" Hideki called to her. "You've got to stop this."

"Why?" Her voice boomed though her mouth was stuck together. "Why should I be the only one who has to suffer. I don't want to be by myself any more. This is the only way. I'll protect everyone, if persacoms can't tell the difference between humans, a human can't fall in love with them. Persacom's and humans will not love each other. Shinji will not love Jenna."

"But what about everyone else, Chi won't know who I am. Who you are! Yuzuki won't know Minoru. Think what you'll do to everyone."

"What would you do Hideki, if you were me? Could you live without Chi? Could you live knowing that she loved someone else?"

"No. No I couldn't." He admitted,

"So what am I meant to do. Kill myself. Is that the answer?"

"No but neither is this!"

"Maybe not, but at least the I won't be alone. If I can't be happy with everyone else then everyone else will be sad with me." You could see the blue flashes darting across her eyes still coated in tears.

"Kaori." It was Hibiya. "You have to stop this. Ichiro is dead, he was the someone just for me. It hurts but it doesn't have to be like this. Mr Ueda, a man I know lost his wife and he has found another. It is the way of the world, wounds heal."

"No this one, Freya told me. She told me it will never heal."

"So you will do to others what you have yourself?" It was Freya, speaking through Chi.

"Yes...I mean no."

"This pain that you feel you would inflict on all others, tell me Kaori is that what you want?"

"No."

"Than stop this."

"And then what? What is their left for me."

"You will bleed to death, like me." There was great sadness in her voice. Kaori ripped the ears from her face and the electricity stopped, Freya became Chi and Zima and Dita stopped their run. They held each other and rejoiced that they knew each other's faces.

Kaori sat on the step to the apartments, looking at the sun rise. The someone just for her didn't love her, she knew there would never be a person that could match him that she was slowly bleeding to death from the wound the string made in her chest. Now she just looked out at the city amazed at what they had slept through.

"Life does go on." She whispered. "Just not for me." She didn't kill herself, but turned around and went back inside, and worked for the next few days on a new persacom, one that looked like Chi but had thick brown hair not white, she downloaded Freya into it. Chitose and Freya sat together watching old movies of Ichiro and just being together. Kaori looked at them, being together was enough for them, why couldn't it be enough for her. She took the train journey to her father's house and knocked on the door. He opened it and looked at her. Behind him and fake her and mother sat waiting for him to return back to the table.

"Hello." He said, "Do you want to come in?"

"No." she whispered and walked into the house. Kaori spent the next three days at the house before she moved on. She visited her mother's grave and tried to work out who she had lost that day. When she had overstayed her welcome she went to visit Shinji for a few hours.

"Kaori, I said that I would visit but I guess I got side-tracked." He was making excuses.

"It's ok." She lied. She realised something, she was going to be ok. It didn't matter that he loved someone else as long as the someone just for her was happy than she would live. As long as he existed that was enough for her. A few weeks later she turned both Sakae and Jet into human units and took a job with NAC, she spent her days living with Jet and Sakae and working towards her goals of furthering persacom technology I'd like to say happily but not all stories have a happy ending, some of them just end.