The next day after school when Inoue Ai returned to the garage where she had left Tanaka-san, she opened the side door and froze.
"Tanaka-san…! What are you doing!" He had taken all the tools and things from their proper places and laid them out on the floor during the day, and was now looking at her blankly.
"I require maintenance," he stated.
"I kn-kn-know that! B-but if you do this, nii-san will get mad!" she said as she scolded the robot. "W-well, Gotokuji's not really my brother, but I call him nii-san anyway," she explained as she began rounding up the tools. "We need to get you cleaned up, first," she finally said as she put the tools in a big pile on a workbench. "We can't open you up when you're covered in dirt and stuff, it'll just get inside and mess you up even more…"
"Understood."
The girl spent the next hour attempting to scrub the grime and dirt from the enormous robot's 'skin', but it seemed to be badly degraded and stained all over; the dirt had gathered in the rough spots and just wouldn't come out.
"Well…I guess that's the best I can do without pouring a bucket of bleach over your head," she said as her expression deepened into annoyance. "Not unless you can take off your skin, anyway," she added in a halfhearted manner, shrugging off such a weird thought.
"Understood," Tanaka said, and then began peeling it off, prompting Ai to turn quickly to face the other direction, red faced.
'It's not like I'm watching him undress or anything…' she shuddered at the thought, wondering what would become of her in the future if such bizarre thoughts continued.
"Operation completed." She forced herself to turn around, and found herself staring at him in awe. There before her stood Tanaka-san, sans skin, a big robot with metal plating covering parts of the torso, pelvis, and joints, and false muscles made of some bluish-white material, which seemed to take the place of normal human muscles. She didn't know much about anatomy, but overall he looked surprisingly human... Then he dropped his skin in her arms.
"Gya…!" she almost screeched as she dropped it to the ground, where it landed with the muffled sound of a pile of moist leather. "Duh-d-don't d-do that!"
"Understood." He just stood there, looking at her.
"Wh-what?" she asked after a moment, wondering what he wanted.
"Suggested course of action: proceed with cleaning the outer layer, then move on to repair and maintenance," he stated.
"O-okay. Just let me look at the damage here," she said hesitantly as she took a notebook and pencil from her bag. She took a deep breath and put on the character of a detective from a TV show she had seen the week before. He had seemed a fairly intelligent fellow, pleasant to speak with but with a sharp eye for detail. She sighed as the character's persona settled into place, and then approached the robot. "Ah…this is probably bad, isn't it?" she asked, pointing at the heavily damaged plate protecting the robot's upper torso.
"Severe damage to upper torso. Location includes memory banks, processors—"
"Okay, I understand," she interrupted as she scribbled a bit of information on the notepad. "Does this…come off?" She pulled lightly on the plate, and stepped back when a sudden click followed almost immediately and the plate hinged open, revealing the damage inside.
"It looks almost as if you were stabbed by something…" she said musingly as she looked. Indeed, whatever had stabbed him in the chest had been driven straight through the protective plates and into what looked to be several hard drives mounted side-by-side, and then on through a circuitboard of some type, only to stop when it hit the inside of the protective plate on the back of his torso.
"Correct. Primary target Sakurazaki Setsuna caused severe damage to torso."
"Wait, 'primary target'? Are you some killer robot?" the girl asked as the persona dropped and she scrambled backward in the narrow garage and bumped into the wall.
"Incorrect. I am Tanaka Unit 1125, a multipurpose prototype unit created for use by-by-by-data not found."
After a moment, Ai regained her courage and approached him again, slipping the detective's persona back on. "Then…who is Sakurazaki Setsuna?" she asked.
"Data not found."
Inoue Ai frowned as she considered that. "How long ago did that happen?"
"Data not found."
"Then how long were you in the woods?"
There was a moment of silence as one of the hard drives whirred and clicked alarmingly and then halted. "Last timestamp before coming online: 05:02:31 p.m. June 22, 2003."
"2003…you were in the woods for six years?" Ai exclaimed. "No wonder you're so damaged! You're lucky you're still working at all!" Honestly, there were far too many surprises today, she couldn't get into character at all.
Tanaka just stood there impassively.
"A-anyway, I'll get this cleaned," she said, gathering up the 'skin'. "Now stay quiet and don't bother anyone, ok?"
"Understood."
Later, after Ai had gone home to the dorm and thrown the skin into one of the washing machines, she climbed the stairs to her own room and plopped down on her bed with a weary sigh.
"What's wrong, Ai-chan?" her roommate, Miyoshi Youko, asked from where she sat crosslegged in a chair with her long white hair up in a ponytail as she watched TV on the small portable unit she had evidently picked up off of a street corner somewhere.
"Nothing, I've just been tired lately," Ai replied with an exhausted yawn. Youko-san was one of the few people she could drop all pretense around, and it was a great relief after a long day at school.
"Hmmmm~? Found a boyfriend, have we~?" Youko asked as she spun the chair around.
"Wuh-wh-what? N-no!" So much for relaxation...
"Really? I guess not…" Youko replied, then coughed into her hand. *cough*boyfriend*cough*
The shorter girl groaned and pulled her pillow over her head. "It's not like that," she mumbled. 'Ugh...dealing with the idiots at school, then Tanaka-san, and now this...it's too exhausting...,' she thought wearily as she let out a deep breath. She rolled over, the pillow still on her head, and heard Youko turn off the TV set. Maybe she could use a little nap, just while Tanaka's skin was washing...then she'd wake up and...and...get it back out of the...the...machine...
She must have drifted off at some point, because the next she knew, the lights were out and her alarm clock said 3:30 a.m. She didn't remember pulling the blankets up…Youko-san must have done that for her after she fell asleep. The strange girl liked to play pranks and tease her classmates far too much, but in the end she was still a good person. Only…Ai couldn't help but feel she had forgotten something, probably something important. She shrugged it off and rolled over, and was soon back to sleep.
"Hey, Ai-chan, wake up. You'll be late."
"Mmm wha…?" Ai asked intelligently as she opened her eyes blearily and saw her roommate leaning over her in her school uniform. "Y-Youko-san?" she asked, her mind still fuzzy with sleep.
"We've got twenty minutes until class starts, you'd better hurry."
"Oh…" Ai said blankly. "What? Why didn't you wake me up!"
"I did. Twice," Youko said as she tossed a few more items into her bag and jammed them down just enough to button the flap. She tossed Ai half a jelly sandwich and bit deeply into the other half as she glanced at her watch. "Mmm-mm, mmm mm mmm." she swallowed. "C'mon we're gonna be late."
It was understandable and, perhaps, quite unfortunate that, with such pressing matters at hand, Ai completely forgot about the washing machine full of skin downstairs.
"Hello, Tanaka-san~" Ai said in a singsong voice as she opened the small side door and stepped into the garage. It had been a very long day at school; getting lectured by Nitta-sensei and Negi-sensei, forgetting her homework…it had been rough. So now she was playing the happy-go-lucky part of a fairy from a play the club had been thinking of trying. She had long ago found that this was the easiest and fastest way to turn her mood around; it all depended on what character you wanted to be.
"Waiting for maintenance," the robot stated as she hung her school bag up on a peg before finally turning to look at him.
"Hey Tanaka-sa-…oh crap. I am so dead." She sighed...she was out of character again.
"Incorrect. Scans show that subject Inoueai biological functions have not ceased."
"No, I mean I left your skin in the washing machine back at the dorm, I hope it's not ruined or anything…"
Meanwhile, back at the dorm, Shizuna-sensei, the acting dorm mother for this cycle, noticed that one of the washing machines still had laundry in it. Being a helpful sort, she decided to help out the students and so opened the door and pulled the item out, thinking at first that it must be some odd sort of flesh-tone pajamas or coveralls. She was understandably freaked out when she shook the item out and got a better look at it. In fact, her startled scream could be heard even outside and up to the top floor of the dorm.
Updates Author's Note: Here's the second updated chapter. Again, it's just minor changes, but the word count has grown a bit. Still, these chapters are much shorter than the ones in the main stories. Anyway, the old Author's Notes for this chapter are not quite accurate anymore. I won't go into detail, but you will see soon enough, hopefully.
(Original) Author's Note: More focus on Tanaka in upcoming chapters; this and the next are mostly to familiarize the reader with a Mahora set six years after Negi's arrival. Many old characters are still around, but there will be many new ones as well. The tone of the story will likely change too.
