6 - In danger

When I saw you again, for the umpteenth time,
you were a girl in danger.

A dog, Mamoru sighed, looking at the picture of three Akita puppies hanged on the window of an animal shop.
For sale! We're two males and one female, in good health. Come in and ask where our kennel is.
He would have liked a dog, but he lived alone.
A dog would wake him in the morning, rubbing his muzzle against the palm of his hand, rolling in the covers. A dog would bark happily every time he returned home, jumping around his feet. A dog would dangle his tongue out to ask for food, in that canine smile that touched Mamoru even when he observed it on TV.
A dog needed to be taken out for a walk at least two or three times a day. Moreover, a dog was the kind of animal who would feel a sense of abandonment if left alone for long hours.
Mamoru could relate.
Unfortunately, he was attending university and he was planning to find a job: such a demanding animal was out of discussion.
He kept on walking, moving away from the shop.
Hm.
The last time he had considered the idea of an animal he hadn't yet lived in an apartment of his own.^
A cat – he pondered. Cats were soft, quiet and discreet. Good qualities, no doubt, but a fellow university student had told him about her cat. The troubles he got into when she wasn't home were – in her own words - legendary. Mamoru cared about his furniture and he was a tidy person. Also, he didn't want to impose solitude on another living being. If the cat created disasters when he was by himself, it probably happened because he felt alone.
What about a canary? A parrot?
The idea of a little yellow bird was colorful, but noisy. He like the singing of canaries just fine, but only out of his window and from a distance.
The possibility of a parrot didn't excite him. It was funny to hear them speaking, but his idea of a perfect awakening wasn't a squawking voice saying to him, "Good morning!".
A hamster? They died in about two years.
A bunny? They usually lived longer – five, ten years? – but they weren't very communicative animals. Not that Mamoru blamed them: he would have felt the same if he had been forced to live in a cage, with no more than one meter square of space.
Bunnies, hamsters, and winged animals had to live in complete freedom. Or at the very least, he wouldn't contribute to trap another one of them.
Which left him with no choices.
"Chanela!"
The exclamation of a child drew his attention. The little boy – an elementary school student – stood still in the middle of the sidewalk, unconcerned with the pedestrians who tried to avoid him. He was keeping a bunny-sized puppet in his hands. Its fur was lilac, very realistic.
The bunny moved an ear.
It's alive!
"Chanela" the little boy sighed. His pupils were dilated and snot dripped from his nose.
The child had a cold, but instead of cleaning himself up, he went on, undismayed, continuing his adoration of the animal.
Getting ahead of him, Mamoru bent his head and tried to understand.
The eyes of the bunny-like little beast were brilliant red, so intense that…
He pulled back.
What was that?
He had felt a needle – a perfumed one – making its way into his brain.
"Chanela!", the little boy repeated in awe.
A lady bumped against him with a shopping bag. "Sorry, kid!"
The boy gave off an enraged noise and resumed his walking, the animal firmly held in his hands.
Was it a new species of bunny?
Moving forward, Mamoru ended up with a piece of paper under his shoe.
The advertising leaflet answered his question.

Chanela, he told himself the next day, shaking his head.
Exactly as the previous afternoon, the shop that sold those animals was crowded. People went in and came out hypnotized - zombies who cared only about their last fetish, the Chanela.
Mamoru would have never thought something like that before, but those weird bunnies seemed… evil.
He didn't care for horror movies and he was firmly convinced that there was an explanation for every wickedness in the world, as well as a human face behind it. But the situation in Juuban had something … supernatural in it.
The heart of the anomaly was the shop at the other side of the street, where the Chanela were freely given to anyone who was interested in them. No money required, not even a meager 'thank you': with the Chanela in their hands, customers came out of the shop without turning back.
To verify it, Mamoru had entered the place himself the day before, discovering a soft-lightened area emanating a venomous, sickly-sweet aroma. A female assistant had invited him to take a look around, showing him the see-through cages – for all intents and purposes, shop-windows for products – where the animals were kept.
Just for the sake of it, Mamoru had attempted to gaze into the eyes of the small beings. He had retracted immediately, alerted by a survival istinct stronger than him.
He had exited the shop with his brain still intact and no animal in his company, a lone survivor among many victims.
But now… what was he to do?
That Chanela business couldn't be illegal. The shop had opened in a central street and was known by hundreds – maybe thousands – of people. Even by the law enforcement?
Somebody other than him had come out of it in full health, right? Somebody with the authority to stop the situation had to be aware of the danger. It wasn't necessary that he, Mamoru Chiba, alerted the media and the police.
There are hallucinogenic bunnies in that place!
A sure way to make an idiot of himself.
On the opposite sidewalk, among the children huddled around the shop entrance, a blond head attracted his attention.
He couldn't believe his own eyes. A ridiculous and naive bunny was about to enter the nest of her own evil brothers.
He crossed the road, running.
The odangos didn't move, they waited for him while their owner watched the shop from the outside. He didn't need to see Usagi-Odango's face to know that her gaze had lightened up at the prospect of getting a Chanela.
Bunnies were attracted by other bunnies, but such a stupidity was too big even for a girl like her.
He managed to reach her. "Ehi, Odango Atama!"
Her shoulders trembled. "That voice…?" She turned around and saw him.
Mamoru didn't even need to invent a reason to laugh: Usagi-Odango had the face of a little jester even in that istant.
He was determined to scare her off with a massive dose of sarcasm.
"Damn!" she growled. "Why do you keep showing up?"
"I can say the same to you." In other circumstances he would have thought that Odango Atama was following him on purpose.
She glared at him, thinking herself threatening.
Odango was overestimating her abilities. "You're not buying a Chanela, are you?"
"What do you care?!"
He had hit her where it hurt and he shrugged. "Perfume doesn't suit you."
"Oh, shut up!"
Too rude. He closed his eyes in shame for a fatal instant. Odango Atama was already going through the sliding doors of the shop.
"Ehi!" He stopped himself. What could he say to her?
Come back here, there are dangerous bunnies in that place!
Odango Atama would consider him a crazy stalker. Or worse, she could mistake his concern for interest. Given their frequent meetings, she could even convince herself that he was following her.
Which was ridiculous, he didn't even know her!
That's right, he thought. What was the difference between Odango Atama and the other dozens of Chanela's victims? He could have tried to save them too. Focusing on one person made no sense.
The problem had to be solved at the root.
Maybe he just needed to wait.
Unusual episodes had been happening in Tokyo for the last few weeks. Women who lost piles of pounds in two or three days, crowds of people who fell into a coma without apparent medical reasons. Maybe the police was already building a case, even if those situations had solved themselves.
The same would happen for the Chanelas: he didn't live in a horror movie, the world wouldn't be invaded by people worshipping evil bunnies.
He gazed at the sky.
He would worry seriously only if those animals didn't disappear in a week.
But surely by then everything would be back to normal.

It happened sooner.
The next day Mamoru read in the newspaper that the Chanela shop didn't exist anymore. According to the short article on page nine, the whole business had moved without specifying a new address, disappointing dozens of potential customers.
It took him two days to get rid of the guilt.
He had abandoned Odango Atama to her destiny. She was only a passing acquaintance to him, but nonetheless she was also a person with whom he had exchanged a few words. He wouldn't have let anyone else he knew go into that shop – from his mailman to the shop assistant of the little grocery store near his apartment. Usagi-Odango had been the exception because he hadn't tolerated the idea of looking like a fool.
Coward.
On Friday evening fate made him feel better.
He was walking through Juuban, under the rain, to rent a videotape. In the greyness of the street, the unexpected yellow spot stood out as a lighthouse. Odango Atama was walking on the opposite sidewalk, an umbrella in her hand. She was dressed in a white and blue dress, a cat going along with her.
It was the first time Mamoru saw her without the school uniform.
She would have been happy to know that he didn't think her thirteen anymore: Usagi-Odango was at least fourteen, for sure. The jacket and the short skirt gave her the look of a girl who still had some growing up to do, but she was on the right path.
She seemed particularly proud of her looks: she was walking cheerfully with straight shoulders, brushing with her fingers the skirt that moved to the rhythm of her pace.
Mamoru smiled. Must be a new dress.
Even if a Chanela had stolen Odango's brain some days ago, everything was fine now.
Proving him wrong, she stopped and started a conversation with her cat.
Mamoru turned a blind eye to that, going his own way.
The bunch of holes in the heads of certain fourteen years old girls couldn't be cured at all.

6 – In danger – END

N/A – With this chapter I covered the event on episode 5 and 6 of the Classic season.
Mamoru is slowly starting to become more aware of Usagi :)
It would be a pleasure to know if you liked this chapter.

For the translation of this chapter I thank ggsi. As usual, if there are errors, let us know.