Ride on a Shooting Star:
Chapter 2: The man with the big eyebrows
When morning came, and it was time to get ready for his last day of school, Naota silently got out of bed and got dressed, being careful not to wake Mamimi. He put on his blue hoodie and some slightly baggy jeans, and he kept the beanie on to cover up his horn. He was excited about his final day of school so he grabbed his back-pack and his skateboard from the corner of the room and left the house to meet up with his friends. After Haruko left, Naota took up skateboarding to keep himself busy, to keep himself from thinking about her. He had become quite talented at it too.
Canti was doing some yard work out front when Naota skated by and told him not to wake Mamimi. When he got to the bridge where his friends were waiting, he grinded the guard rail and landed, tilting his board into a nose manual and finally stopped in front of his friends. "Show off..." Masashi muttered. He too had taken up skateboarding with Naota, but he was horrible and had nearly broke his arm which caused him to quit.
"You wanna know who I saw yesterday?" teased Gaku, "I saw Naota's ex-wife, the one who quit high school."
"I know, Mamimi's staying at my house. She's asleep in my room right now," Naota replied, though, as soon as he did, he knew he shouldn't have.
"What?" Gaku, Masashi, and Ninamori said in unison.
"Hey, I didn't mean it like tha-" Naota tried to explain but he was cut off by the deep voice of someone who was coming up from behind him, "Naota, we need to talk."
Naota looked behind him. A man with dark red hair, huge rectangular eyebrows, and sported a business suit sat upon a moped in the middle of the road. It was Amarao.
"You guys go on ahead, I'll catch up with you later." said Naota to his friends.
"Okay, later Naota. And by the way, that hat's really bizarre," Ninamori commented as she turned and left with the others. Naota could hear Gaku rambling on about something, but the only words he could distingquish was "Smooch, smooch!"
"What do you want?" Naota asked in a cold tone; he and Amarao weren't always on the best of terms. After the M.M. incident, as Amarao called it, he would come by and check on Naota every now and then, making sure nothing else had come out of his head to start trouble.
"We have a problem, Naota," replied Amarao.
"A problem? What problem?" Naota asked , "Our satellites have taken pictures of something strongly resembling the way Atomsk looked when he left Earth, and it's heading toward the planet as we speak. Our guess is he's heading back to Mabase for something." Amarao's eyebrows twiched at the thought of the pirate king coming back; the last time Atomsk was there he sucked in Amarao's eyebrows into his head along with parts of the city.
"What? Why would he come back? What does he want?" Naota was becoming frantic again. He had once tasted the power of the Pirate King, and, although it was a small taste, it was powerful nonetheless.
"Tell me, do you still have her guitar? The one she would hit you with to make the Medical Machanica robots come out of your head." asked Amarao, anyone could tell he was beating around the bush.
"Yeah, so what?
"He wants it. Along with that robot you call Canti."
"Why?"
"Think, Naota. Every time she hit you with that guitar, things would come out of your head. It's what activates your N.O. powers, and it can just as easily take them away. And, as for the robot, Atomsk was traped inside it until you some how absorbed his power and set him free. The two combined could easily imprison him like before, and he isn't happy about it." Amarao's eyebrows were twitching even more now, which only happend when he was mad. "This is why we're sending a nucular warhead toward it, which was specifically made to intercept and destroy him," he finished.
Naota was beginning to lose it as well, "Wha-? Your just gonna blow him up? What's wrong with you? If it's that big a deal I'll just give him the guitar!"
"I won't let him set one foot on this planet! If the Pirate King...If Atomsk comes back...Then Raharu...Raharu will come back too!" Once Amarao had said that, Naota's eyes widened as far as they would. "She'll come back to find him. And she'll come for you too, for the horn growing on your head," Amarao completed as he turned himself and his vehicle away.
"How did you know about-" Naota was cut off once again by Amarao.
"Don't be fooled again, Naota. She's only going to use you to get what she wants; just like she did before," Amarao warned.
"You're wrong; she wasn't just using me," Naota protested.
"Just think about it, will you?" finished Amarao, as he drove away.
When Naota finally made it to school, he was dreadfully late. Unfortunately for him, Miya-Jun, their teacher, hated tardiness, "And where were you, Mr. Nandaba?" Naota didn't answer, he just took his seat next to Ninamori with a blank look on his face, "Naota, I'm talking to you. Where have you been? You're fifteen minutes late for school!" Miya-Jun had to slam her hand on the desk to grab his attention.
"Oh, sorry Miya-jun. There was an emergency I had to take care of," Naota replied, his face still blank.
"Hmm...Well, luckily for you, this is the last day of school." Miya-Jun had also been their teacher from gradeschool, but lucky for her she got moved up to seventh grade teaching because her class had exelent marks.
"Naota? Are you okay?" Masashi asked, waving his hand in front of Naota's face to gain his attention, but to no avail.
"You look like somebody died," Ninamori added.
"No," Naota said, somewhat quietly, "Nobody's dead."
"Then what's wrong with you?" asked Gaku. Naota was starting to get annoyed, he wanted to be alone to think.
"Nothings wrong; just drop it." Will she really come back?
Meanwhile in a secret facility on the outskirts of Mabase:
Amarao and his assistant were watching the new satellite images of Atomsk, "Do you think the missile will be powerful enough to take him out commander?"
"I sure as hell hope so, Kitsurubami," replied Amarao as he turned and walked toward the computer controlling the missile.
"How can you be sure it'll even hit? He could easily dodge it," Kitsurubami stated, there was a slight uneasiness in her voice.
"No, he won't. I programed the missile with a certain amount of artificial intelligence, and I've fed it all the footage we have of Atomsk. It also has a mechanical eye on it's nose, that way it will be able to see him. It won't miss." Amarao typed in a code sequence to enable the launch.
"Missile launch in five, four, three, two, one..."
Back at the Nandaba residence:
Naota was in his room resting, he was still contemplating the events that happened earlier that day.
Fine, let Amarao blow him up...
Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Naota waited for a moment to hear if anyone answered it. He then realized his father was working in the bakery, therefore, Naota went to answer the door himself. The bell rang again,. "I'm coming; hold on." Naota's eyes were a little groggy, but he immediately woke up after he opened the door.
"Hi, Takkun."