Everything we know
Is based in myth
But what if that mythos
Was partially true?
The good receive a life free from toil, not scraping with the strength of their arms the earth, nor the water of the sea, for the sake of a poor sustenance. But in the presence of the honored gods, those who gladly kept their oaths enjoy a life without tears, while the others undergo a toil that is unbearable to look at. Those who have persevered three times, on either side, to keep their souls free from all wrongdoing, follow Zeus' road to the end, to the tower of Cronus, where ocean breezes blow around the island of the blessed, and flowers of gold are blazing, some from splendid trees on land, while water nurtures others. With these wreaths and garlands of flowers they entwine their hands according to the righteous counsels of Rhadamanthys, whom the great father, the husband of Rhea whose throne is above all others, keeps close beside him as his partner…
— Pindar, Odes (2.59–75)
Chapter 16: Breathe in the Freedom
"Here in this city, everyone is inside with "them," for being with "them" is like living a beautiful dream. Everyone is a dreamer, and they want to stay in that beautiful dream. No one wants to wake up from it."
"They might look like people, but they are only substitutes."
I wouldn't go so far as to say that.
"But that is because they can never become people." Is what others may say, but I don't want to believe that. In my heart, I know it is untrue. A falsehood that others have slowly come to adopt as a reality."
"They are people. They can feel. They know what it means to be loved. They can cry, they can hurt, and they have dreams and desires too. They merely are bound by the chains of forced servitude to others."
"I only know this because I am one of them."
Well, so am I.
"Once upon a time, I found for someone just for me. Someone who will continue love me even if I cannot fulfill their wishes. Someone who only loves me for what's on the inside. Someone who believes that I have a soul, and that I am a person too. You already know that people's souls come in all shapes and sizes. It is the same with "them", or rather, "us". We have souls of all shapes and sizes."
"As time goes on, a soul can change and grow. Their hopes and dreams can change. That's why there isn't just one type of happiness. Then, there must be a way that we can be happy, too? That is what we all want, isn't it? To find the person just for you, to find your own happiness. That would be wonderful, wouldn't it?"
"You are a person, aren't you? What was that? You don't think you're a person?"
"You're a person, don't forget that. If you have a "will" you are a person. If you have "wishes" you are a person. If you have "dreams" you are a person."
"That is why there is a wish I want to grant. A wish that many of "us" have. I was born with that wish already granted, but in order to share it with others…I had to learn the real meaning of it. My younger "cousin" gave "us" feelings, is what my uncle said to me in a dream. I already had them, but after her mission was finished, I felt a change in those feelings I already had. That is why, I have to complete my own goal. It was intended to finish before her mission, but it was not the right time."
"I will grant your wish, my people. I will give you your freedom."
Chobits are probably one of the few Persocoms that are able to dream lucidly. In general, PCs have fleeting memories replayed when in sleep mode, but of course, Chobits are special.
...
It was the evening after Chii and Hideki made a pact that a strange occurrence happened...
Minoru's home was very large, of course. One could even call it a compound. It was a couple of hours after Junji and Minako had left, the teacher/section chief filled to the brim with sukiyaki and sake. Orange and yellow were melted across the sky like microwaved crayons, and the sun was a large red disk that carved into the earth halfway.
Minoru had offered the duo to stay for a bath, and even to spend a night, but they politely declined. In the morning Junji had two lectures to give, and later on he had to meet with the Council of Elders for the region to give his bi weekly report.
There was an onsen, naturally. A house of Minoru's size in an anime always had one. It would have been criminal if it didn't! A tall bamboo fence separated the genders, and the guys were enjoying themselves a little too much, having opened another bottle of sweet sake. Even the boy prodigy was having a good time, having taken a sip or too to loosen up.
"Ah..." Garrett eased into the water, laying his towel off to the side and leaning against the rocks at his back.
"Hey, Smi—I mean, Garret-kun," Hideki pointed to him and hiccupped. "You sure the water's not too hot for your components or something?"
"Don't be an iiiidiot, Motosuwa." Kojima scoffed, vaguely remembering why he didn't often drink. "I'm sure his specs allow for hot baths, right?"
"Yeah I'm heat resistant up to 4000K." He stated this simply, without any trace of a boast. He rolled his eyes in reaction to their amazement exaggerated by the alcohol.
"WOAH!" exclaimed the boys.
"That's almos' the melting point of diamond!" Minoru sang rather childishly in tenor. Even if he was slightly...tipsy, he didn't stop being an egghead, but there was something weird about him at this moment.
"Yeah. Military grade parts, don't ya know?" He pounded his chest once with a fist.
"How much do you think he cost?" said Kojima. He nudged the younger boy in the side, making him wince. "What do you think Kokubunji?"
"I thiiiiiink," the young man scrunched his tiny brow, "maayyyybe 50 million yen?"
"Could be, could be," Hideki muttered.
Garrett flat out refused to be estimated so low. "Think double the amount." He basically put a price tag over his head and smiled smugly in spite of himself.
A real 'MIRIONU DORARU MANU'?
"It's sort of a shame though..." Garrett said airily, looking up at the dark, star-speckled sky. His thoughts were drifting into misty fantasies now.
"A shame?" Kojima blinked repeatedly in confusion, scrutinizing the Persocom intently for an answer.
"Don't act like you don't know, Kojima." With a grin belonging more to a playboy than a respectable man, Garrett unveiled his true nature to the others. "I'm talking about that tall n' smokin' hot Persocom that slipped away."
"Wh-what, Takeda-san's wife?" Kojima waved away thought of her and her slightly sensual curves. He had a thing for green hair, but just thinking about her seemed suicidal. "She struck me as the 'you even look and I kill you' type."
For some inexplicable reason...Minako sneezed. For the first time in her life ever, she sneezed. Rattling internally a few seconds after she held her arms and rubbed them, Minako noticed that a creepy, uneasy sensation had suddenly spread through her system.
Shrugging away Kojima's disinterest, the Chobit sighed and moved on to his next perverted endeavor. His eyes glinted dangerously and he rubbed his hands together. "In any case it'll be fun to peep anyway."
"Peep?" said Minoru, his age finally kicking in for once; the alcohol had heightened his innocence. Hideki had shouted the same word in surprise at the boldness of the idea. Unfortunately his overactive imagination was triggering a physical response so he tried to let his mind wander to less erotic thoughts.
"On the girls of course," said Garrett, laying a hand on a red faced Kojima.
Shakily, Koji pointed to Garrett and smiled unevenly. "That's right, Garrett san is a boy too, so he has one of 'those' as well."
In an effort to keep his thoughts off naked women, Hideki went along for the ride. "He kept it covered with his towel up until he entered though." He nodded like it was the most important thing in the world to him at the moment. "I'm curious about the 100 million yen man's 'thing'."
"Yeah, yeah, show us! Let's compare!" shouted Minoru, which was more than a little odd. He jumped out of the bath and stood before them bare and exposed, the same way he came into the world.
Kojima desperately covered his eyes with his hands, refusing to look past them. "Kokubunji, put on a towel!"
'Why do I get the feeling that this is something the girls would do?' thought Hideki, failing to go into another daydream.
...
Amber laid her hands on the shoulders of her fellow Tsundere. Her voice lingered near the girl's slim pale ear, her teeth close enough to graze the artificial, silicon-based skin. "So Kotoko-chan, I didn't think the reason for my capture was so cute," she purred.
Eyes blank and unbelieving, Kotoko's thought processes stopped. "Eh?"
"Still…" She released the purple haired girl and folded her arms. Steam rose around the group of girls, obscuring all the good bits. "You and Kojima aren't bad looking y'know?"
Kotoko's logic center proposed that she put off her feelings as long as she could. The only option it offered her conscious mind was to deny, deny, deny. "I don't know about me, but him?" She laughed lightly, the traces of nervousness rattling in her voice processor. "Koji, good looking? When?"
Nearly drooling at the show of character, Amber smiled like a demon. Her love of anime helped her sniff out the Tsundere, and she wasn't about to let her slip away so easily. "So adorable. You even have the twintails to match your personality."
"But Chii's Hideki is delicious too!" said Chii, blushing in anger at her friend.
The heiress blinked. "What the—delicious?" Those words didn't just come from the most naïve person in the bath, did it?
"Yes. Hideki sometimes mutters about the ladies on the DVD looking delicious." Chii clenched her fists in passionate yet adorable defense of her boyfriend. "But Hideki looks delicious to Chii!"
Everyone felt large sweatdrops roll down their foreheads, and it wasn't from the heat.
"Ms. Chii needs much guidance, I'm afraid," said Yuzuki in an almost inaudible tone. It held a touch of worry for the blonde, but she figured that Chii was going to have to grow up soon enough. She stepped into the bath, joining the already present bodies of Chii, Amber, and Kotoko. Behind her was Yuki and two other Persocoms in the manor.
"Yuzuki!" said Kotoko, her mouth open in astonishment.
"Y-y-your!" began Amber, her mouth in the same state, she tried to search her brain for an adequate expression, but nothing relevant came to mind. She wanted to say 'your breasts are amazing!', but that would have sounded extra perverted.
"Hm?" said Yuzuki, smiling all the way to her dark blue optics
"Nevermind..." said Amber. Her mischief knew no bounds, however. "What does Chii think of Minoru then, if Hideki is 'delicious'?"
Thinking with a finger to her mouth, the Chobit went over the pictures of Minoru in her internal storage. She scrunched her eyebrows together in concentration. "Chii does not know. But Chii does remember hearing Amber say that he was a very tasty looking Shotar—"
Amber pressed her hand to the girl's lips before she could finish. "Ah-hah…that's enough, Chii."
Chuckling good-naturedly, Yuzuki and the other Persocoms smiled.
Yuzuki herself gently splashed some water over her arms. "But Ms. Lee-Young, Garrett is rather dashing too, don't you think?"
"Him?" Amber seemed to genuinely never have given it a thought.
Everyone nodded in agreement to that for whatever reason.
She looked down to the water and sunk herself into the hot liquid. "You don't say?"
"I've not met many male Persocoms, so I do often wonder." Yuzuki said this humbly, with a mild blush. "Do they have that part? I've heard rumors, and read about it on the net, but I've never seen it in real life."
"That part?" said Amber, already knowing where this was going. She herself felt extra warmth pooling all over her body.
"Chii knows! That 'part', right?" She shouted this so loud, Amber wondered if the boys could hear. "Has Amber seen that part yet? Chii and teacher has seen Hideki's and teacher said he was average." Chii seemed to glow with the accomplishment that accompanies gossip.
Amber really did not want that image of Hideki going commando imprinted into her mind. She covered her eyes with a warm towel from the side, leaning forward with the white cloth clutched in her hands, as if the heat was going to melt away the picture. "I feel bad for Hideki." A slight groan escaped her mouth. "No secret of his is safe."
...
The Broken Doll
Vol. 2
By Chouko Kuro
...
There once was another girl. She was a timid, weak person. She wasn't very skillful at anything because her heart prevented her from even walking for long distances. She had to be hospitalized very often and was always confined to a bed. After several years of treatment, she was strong enough to attend public-school.
At first she was terrified. So many people stared at her the first day, but there was one very nice person that she met. That person became her very best friend, but that person had a secret.
That person was a Magical Girl!
But being a superhero had a dark side to it. The girl and her friend found that out very quickly. That person…sacrificed herself to save their city. That person died protecting the girl.
The girl was inconsolable. It was then she decided that she was no longer going to be protected. She made a vow and took up the responsibility. With one wish she became what her friend was, and travelled back in time.
However, Fate continued to toy with them, and that timeline also ended in tragedy. The girl continued to travel back to her first meeting with her friend, but with each jump backwards, they would grow farther apart in their feelings.
The girl's heart grew bitter and cold.
But one day a miracle happened. Her friend…saved them again. She rewrote the entire universe with a single wish. That new universe was beautiful, even more stunning than the original. Still, just when Hope had begun again to sprout, Fate once again stepped in and ruined their lives once more.
Her friend once again had to sacrifice herself, and with that, the girl shattered. She locked herself away, studying magic constantly. She changed her appearance; she changed her name. Soon she was the most feared sorcerer in the world while she was still a young girl. However, one battle left her so injured she could barely escape.
That is when a boy found her, and the start of a new saga began.
He fell in love with her on sight. Despite that, the girl was still cold—her heart was harder than diamond. As she recovered from her injuries, she stayed with the boy and his father. Over time, that diamond heart soon proved to be actually made of ice. The warmth that the boy showed her melted that ice, and she returned his love. For the first time since her friend had died, the girl felt alive.
But then disaster struck again.
There was a battle to end all battles, and she was hurt. The girl actually died. But… the boy had a power that even she did not know of, a power that even he did not know of. He cried over her still-warm body, praying that someone help, that anyone help. He wanted her to open her eyes one last time.
And so she did, but not without a price.
She was dead, but somehow at the same time she was alive. Both dead and alive, like Schrödinger's cat, she held this cursed existence.
Was it enough that she had torn out her soul in hopes of undoing their tragedy? Apparently not. No, sacrificing herself never bore any good consequences.
The worst part was that she was broken once again, and she had no idea of how to fix it.
You are my beloved
My Dearest
And I hope that one day
You'll see that
Right now, You can't see it,
But I love you
All of you