Thank you MyOhMai, chobbits lover, a fan, val, ellimary and Lady Sonora the Black-Rose for reviewing!

Asilentdrifter: Really? It's usually the opposite for me. I get so into reading I forget to write.

SakuraLiTomoyoHiiragisawa: Kero is a funny guy.

Bleddingblakrose: No, I'm not Nick. I didn't "steal the story," but after I wrote chapter 3, I noticed someone else made a fanfiction with Chi being more human XD too.

AmnarJoey: Hacked or possessed? Neither. You'll find out in this chapter though.

Fairylore: That's nice to hear because I was hoping no one was off character.


Chapter 4


Finally reaching her, Hideki roughly grabbed her shoulders, panting. "Chi, where did you go? I told you not to wander off, remember?"

Chi's face turned towards the man, and when Hideki saw her cold eyes, he realized it wasn't Chi.

"Hideki..." the persocom said her voice solemn.

"Chi—no, you're not Chi." Quickly glancing at her ears, he realized they were persocom ears, not human ones. "You can't be Freya, can you?"

"That's right. I'm Freya," responded the persocom, taking his hand off of her shoulder. "I need to talk to you about something."

"Wait, where's Chi? How come you're in her body and what about the ears?"

"Chi is not here right now. She ran off with that faux body. This," she pointed to her body, "is Chi's body."

"What? But then, Chi's current body is fake? How can that be?"

"No time to explain. We have to find Chi first."

"But...I've been looking for her for almost an hour! And there's no sign of her..." His voice was panicky, filled with worry.

"Calm down. She couldn't have gone far. Chi would not disobey you on purpose so she was either kidnapped or something happened to her, and she can't come back."

Hideki gasped. The thought of Chi being in danger was unpleasant. "Then, I have to find her!" With that, he ran off, this time into the woods which were near the park.

He left Freya smiling. "I'm glad Chi has such a nice guy. Hideki cares about her so much," she said to herself as she watched him fade off into the distance.

Chi... he thought as he ran with all his might. Please be safe! The background was like a blur to him as he ran, his legs growing more and more tired. It seemed like the woods were growing thicker and thicker by the second, making him have to duck a few times and sway to the side in order to avoid clashing into branches.

Then he saw her. A blonde perosocom lying on the grass, she was sprawled out, as if she was sleeping.

"Chi!" He cried out, running towards the persocom. He grabbed her delicate shoulders, and then gently shook her. "Chi! Can you wake up?"

"It's okay. Chi's fine," a voice said.

The teenager turned around to see Freya. "Freya, do you know what happened?" he asked as he began to lift Chi up.

"The faux body isn't working correctly. We must bring her to Ms. Hibiya. She might know what do since she used to help create persocoms."

"Faux body? What do you mean by that?"

"It will be explained later."

There was no time to argue with Chi is this condition. He had to get her back to Ms. Hibiya's home as fast as possible since that was the only way to help her.


"I'm sorry about all this trouble, Motosuwa-san. I think I know why she's like this," the long, black-haired woman explained as she brought a blanket to Chi's bed.

Hideki had just rushed back from the park, leaving Chi in Ms. Hibiya's care while he left Plum and Kotoko at home. Now he was back at Ms. Hibiya's home, hoping for an answer about all this.

Freya sat by her sister, looking concerned.

"Really? How do you know?" Hideki questioned. It seemed like Ms. Hibiya always knew mysterious things about Chi.

"I'll explain everything to you. Why don't you take a seat?" She pointed to a chair near the table as she sat down herself.

After sitting down, Ms. Hibiya started to explain. "When I was still working at the lab where the persocom system was developed, there was an experiment we were doing. In order to make a persocom have more human-like features, we created a new body, and transferred the data on the persocom to that body."

"Oh...so Chi must be in one of those new bodies. That means there's nothing wrong then, right? But how come Freya's here?"

"No," came the sad reply. "The experiment was not a success. When the data stayed in the body for a long period of time, the body would start to function incorrectly, and eventually it would break. There were two spirits inside Chi's body: Chi's and Freya's. When Chi's spirit left, Freya's spirit took over the body."

"So Chi's going to die!" Hideki shouted desperately.

"No she won't," an unknown voice rang in the air.

"Who's there!" exclaimed Hideki. If there was a way to help Chi, he wanted to know it immediately.

Knock! Knock!

Everyone in the room turned to the door, but Ms. Hibiya was the only one to stand up and answer it. In front of the door was a woman with short brown hair wearing a lab coat.

Standing up, Hideki recognized her immediately. "Hey, aren't you the woman who accidentally hit Chi with a frisbee?"

The woman turned her gaze towards Hideki, then nodded. Her face was somewhat cold, unlike the sympathetic emotion her face held last time when she apologized to Chi.

Noticing the tension in the atmosphere, Ms. Hibiya cheerfully welcomed the woman. "Hello Miraru-san! Please come in. It seems like you you have already met Motosuwa-san," she said, pointing to Hideki. Her voice was full of hospitality and happiness, despite the fact that this woman might've harmed Chi, her daughter.

"Thank you Hibiya-san. You always know how to treat someone into your home," she replied as she entered the apartment, her hair bouncing up and down. Glancing at Hideki, she smiled, saying, "Hello. I'm Miraru Shiraiku."

"Nice to meet you Shiraiku-san," replied Hideki as he stood up and bowed. "If there's anything you know about Chi, please tell me!"

"Chi..." mumbled Miraru, "your persocom?"

"Yes, my persocom," he answered, not wanting to think of Chi as just a persocom. She was so much more than that.

"All right Motosuwa-kun. I'll tell you about her. Since Ms. Hibiya has kindly explained to you this project, I will just continue from where she left off. It's true that our last project with making persocoms have more human-like qualities was unsuccessful, but I have found the flaw. After several days of research, I was able to fix the flaw along with some of my coworkers. We added a new program to the spurious body, and now the previous flaw should not appear anymore. There may be a few times when the persocom will seem to stop working, but do not worry. That is only a result of the persocom's data adapting to the new body."

"Has this experiment been done with other persocoms before?" Hideki asked anxiously. He couldn't let Chi be a guinea pig for her experiment.

"Why, yes. We have a persocom in our house who acts as the maid. We have already operated on her and it was a success."

"Then why are you doing this to Chi? You never asked me or her if you could operate on her."

"That day when I saw your persocom walking together with you, both of you seemed so happy. Imagine the happiness you'll experience when she's like a human! It'll be like perpetual euphoria! You probaly wouldn't have let me do this to her, but I know that things will turn out all right, and she'll be more human."

But how did you do the operation without me kno—" Suddenly he realized where Chi had gone that morning. She must've gone to her lab or somewhere so she could be operated on! "Then, that morning when Chi was missing...did you take her!"

"Well, technically, I didn't take her. She came to my house," Shiraiku said, crossing her arms and nodding to herself.

"But how—"

Interrupting him, she continued to explain. "I inserted a pill into her which made her come to my place at that frisbee incident."

So she did steal her... he reasoned.

"Don't worry. Like I said, for the first few days, she'll have a some down times, but just a few! The most time it would last is thirty minutes so you need not worry, Motosuwa-kun. And you should be delighted. After all, I am giving you this operation for free since you might not be able to pay for it if I were to charge you."

How does she know I'm poor! Hideki shouted in his mind. Then again, maybe she was just assuming.

"Is Hideki feeling okay?" a sweet voice asked.

Everyone's head turned towards the source of the sound, Chi. She had just "woken up" and noticed the look of anguish on Hideki's face, which he unconsciously made while yelling in his head.

"Yes, Chi. I'm fine," replied Hideki, immediately erasing the strange look on his face. He was constantly worrying her by doing such things.

"That's good."

"Chi," Ms. Hibiya said, "are you feeling all right?"

"Chi feels fine," the blonde persocom replied.

"Chi," Hideki said. "An operation is being performed on you. It's going to make you be more like a human. Is that okay with you?"

"Operation?" asked Chi. "What is an 'operation'?"

"An operation is...well..." Hideki mumbled, trying to think of an explanation she could understand. "Something is being done to your body so that you can be more like a human."

"More like a human? More like Hideki?"

"Yes, that's what I mean."

Chi knew that Hideki would be happier if she was more like a human. It seemed like it took him a while to accept the fact that he was in love with a persocom. "Yes!" she exclaimed. "Chi wants to be more like a human! More like Hideki!" Bouncing up and down, she gave him a hug.

"Okay," he chuckled. "So, these down times won't last long, right Miraru-san?" He turned his gaze towards the woman.

"That's right Motosuwa-san," the woman replied.

In the meantime, Chi and Freya were talking about something. Chi seemed to be worried, but Freya's facade appeared calm. It was obvious Freya was trying to calm her sister down.

"Well," Hideki said. "I guess we should leave now Chi." Turning towards Ms. Hibiya, he bowed. "Thank you so much for helping out again, Ms. Hibiya! Then he turned towards Miraru and thanked her too.

"Bye!" Hideki and Chi said in unison as they left through the door.

Silence rang through the room as they left.

"Thank goodness he left!" Miraru sighed. She was relieved he didn't seem to make a really big deal about her using Chi like that.

"Miraru-san," Freya called out.

"What is it?" the woman asked.

"If you harm my sister in any way," she said, putting a hand on the woman's shoulder. "I will not forgive you." Apparently she didn't believe this woman had fixed that flaw. "I know how you acted towards Mama in the lab." Her cold voice pierced the air like a dagger, leaving the room in an uncanny silence.


Author's Note:Sorry if that took too long! Hopefully this chapter wasn't boring, and I hope that clears some things up. The next chapter will be a lot better! Look forward to it (I think I've been watching those anime previews for too long)!