MASS POST WARNING: GO BACK AND READ THE FIRST CHAPTER I POSTED, PLEASE. IT WILL SAY "THIS IS THE FIRST CHAPTER I POSTED."

I am picking up the pace on this story. Everything had been planned from day one; it was just executing it that was hard.

The songs for this chapter are "Simple and Clean" by Utada Hikaru from Kingdom Hearts, and "A Place in Time" by Amanda Abizabid. The second of which will appear briefly.

I'm paralyzed

I'm stuck in time

Frozen

I can't move on

If I move on, I'm afraid of what will happen

I don't want to fall in love

Chapter 26: For Whom the Lotus Blooms

Under the early morning hours, there flashes a long silver blade. It is marred by crimson…

(mana, pulsing ever steady)

…there is a sickening crunch and the clang of metal, and the pitiful screams go on and on, without stopping.

They were my screams.

...

After the initial awkwardness, Garrett felt more comfortable at the gala when he was sure no one was looking at him. It was a sea of sparkling gowns and black tuxedos. The air was crisp and cool inside the vast ballroom. They had announced their names upon arrival, and now the sea of scrutinizing eyes had become bored with who the heiress of Gala Inc. had chosen for her date.

They walked past more than just a few industry giants on the way to their reserved table.

Was that his imagination, or was that Benjamin Paths, founder of Picosoft, chatting with four blonde Persocoms near the giant ice butterfly sculpture? And over there, near the champagne fountain, there was Dr. Hakase, the co-founder of Reishinka Industries. Next to her was a tall green-haired Persocom with ears that remind him of airplane wings sticking straight up. As much as Garrett would like to talk to these brilliant, innovative minds, there was one business mogul he dreaded meeting. The president of Gala Computers Incorporated. Ahead of him was Dr. Shawn Michaels Lee-Young.

There was nowhere to escape.

This was the first time he would be meeting her father in person.

Sure, Garrett had heard of him on television, seen him speak on talk-shows, even heard whispers of his voice over the cellphone when Amber would call him. But nothing in person. Nothing at all. If he was uncomfortable having Amber meet his parents, imagine how he felt meeting her father.

Standing next to their reserved table was Dr. Lee-Young. He had a pretty, pink-haired Persocom standing next to him, and they were speaking with some of the shareholders.

Garrett blanched; he wanted to rub his eyes in disbelief. That Persocom standing next to the chatting doctor was not just any Persocom. Wasn't that Meroko Black, the Persocom singing star? From the girl's head, two white rabbit ears were continually twitching. Two years ago the media had continually announced her marriage to the millionaire Joe Black, only two months after she started her career.

"Hi Daddy," said Amber, walking up to her father. She held Garrett's arm, and despite the composed and together air they were giving off, she was the one leading him instead of the other way around.

"Amber, there you are. Glad you could join us." Her father opened his arms in welcome and grabbed her into a hug.

After he released her, Amber embraced her big sister. "Meroko!" she said brightly, snuggling the girl clad in a hot pink gown.

"Hey there little sis'." Meroko nodded to the nervous young man standing next to her sister. "Who's your date?" She already was trying to size up Garrett, and from the looks of it, Meroko was already analyzing him. She had heard quite abut about him over the years, but her sister had kept him quite hidden away. Meeting him in person was harder to arrange than having dinner with the President of the United States, and yet now he was here in front of her.

His embarrassed look certainly was cute, that was for sure. He wasn't bad-looking to begin with, either.

"N-nice to meet you, Dr. Lee-Young, Mrs. Black, I'm Garrett Ravensdale."

They all shook hands like investors meeting for the first time at a business conference.

The light of recognition ignited in Dr. Lee-Young's eyes.

"Ravensdale." He tipped his head lightly. "The son of the heads of R&D and Advertising, am I right? You're also from Amber's karate class, I think. I've heard a bit about you."

They shook hands, briefly.

Naturally, he expected her father to have heard of him at some point in time. Amber clearly must have mentioned him at some point. What Garrett had not expected was that such a rich and famous man would even remember that he was 'that kid from his daughter's karate classes'.

All the stress of meeting his friend(who happened to be a girl)'s father, slackened a bit. Feeling a little freer than before, Garrett smiled despite his trepidation and folded his hands behind his back.

"Really, sir? I'm honored to hear that. After all, you co-developed the AI technology with Doctors Ichiro and Chitose Mihara. You started the Sarah Thompson Artificial Limbs Foundation. Billionaire, Genius, Philanthropist, you're sort of my hero."

"I'm flattered. I don't get compliments like that often. Most of my staff probably thinks I'm bonkers." Dr. Lee-Young scratched his cheek nervously. "At least one kid still likes me."

Meroko placed her cheek on her father's shoulder, rubbing his back. "Daddy... Don't be silly. Lots of people like you."

Amber mimicked her sister, resting her head against her father's free arm. "Yeah, like, you're not totally hopeless."

"Thanks, girls. But I'm pretty sure they pretend to like me because they fear me." Dr. Lee-Young continued to smile at Garrett genially. "Mr. Ravensdale, you're a good kid—and from what I hear from your parents, you love working with Persocoms, and that you're smarter than half of my staff. When you finish school, just give me a call—I can give you a job. And not some underpaid internship, either."

"Daddy..." said his daughters in unison, both giving him dark looks. They were holding his arms tightly, putting some of their weight on him. Couldn't he just go back to his normal dad routine? Was he tired of the typical, hating the boyfriend business already?

Surprised by this reaction from his daughters, he looked from one pouty girl to the next. If he laughed now, he'd be in trouble for sure.

"What? Meroko, Amber, I happen to like him. He's got that little sparkle in his eyes. There's potential."

"But you hated Joe when you first met him," complained Meroko.

If Dr. Lee-Young could have slapped his younger self, he would have.

It was true. He had disliked the man so much that when Mr. Black came to visit, Dr. Lee-Young had ordered the maids to restrain the young millionaire.

The flustered father tried to explain his blatant bias against the other man. "Well, to be fair, he had a completely different feel than Mr. Ravensdale, here. You see—,"

In the distance, someone in a white suit holding a clipboard waved at the slightly-mad billionaire. Ready to take an exit, he hurriedly shrugged away his daughters. Before he kicked himself in the mouth here, he needed to leave and get ready for the prepared pre-dinner program.

"Oh, that's my cue. The program is about to start, soon. You three can sit and get more acquainted with each other."

Like a human Alka-Seltzer, he dissolved into the water-like crowd.

Looking after the man with mild confusion, the three youngsters sat down. Garrett had not expected such a first meeting. He seemed just a little eccentric, like the technology journals had claimed. The only other one who probably would beat him in the madness department had to be the late Dr. Mihara, who died of some strange neurological disorder.

"So, uh, you're Amber's sister?" said Garrett, trying to sort out the family situation. Obviously, he knew of what happened to Amber's mother, but she had completely left out the fact that her sister was a known celebrity. Garrett had been so focused on her father's achievements with Persocoms that he had completely overlooked certain areas of the man's life.

"Yeah, but I'm just a few years older," Meroko said, her ears sticking straight up like antennae. "I assume you weren't expecting someone so…mechanical?"

Understandable that she would assume that of him. Most people would have had a problem with that, yet he could not understand why that was. They were people—very interesting people. Garrett was a little more than just fascinated; others could rightly say he was obsessed. He was like someone who wanted to become a medical doctor because they simply adored how the human body was built and how it operated, and simply wanted to improve upon it in any way they could.

"Actually," Garrett looked slightly abashed, "that was more of a wonderful surprise. Amber mentioned everything about you aside from that."

"Then why were you so shocked to see…well, me?" Meroko rested her chin on top of her hands.

Silent for the moment, Amber rolled her eyes. If there had been some champagne on the table, this would have been the best time to down a whole glass of it. Not that she could legally drink yet, anyway, but it was a nice thought to have. Comforting, almost.

Garrett, on the other hand, looked at Meroko as if she had eaten a doughnut and said she had had a human stomach implanted into her chassis. His bright blue eyes turned into saucers.

"Are you serious? You're Meroko Black. Since you started singing I've been a huge fan—I have all of your albums."

That was the last thing she would have ever thought to hear from someone. In this world, she had many opposers, due to her being a Persocom. Her fans were few, but loyal, and as improbable as it was, it seemed that she was meeting with one of them right now.

Traces of skepticism danced around in her neon pink eyes. A slim pulsing red ring of light encircling her iris was revolving, growing, and shrinking at a moderate pace.

"Really? That's quite interesting for you to say. Let me test that, then. What's your favorite song of mine?"

Garrett replied immediately, with an excitement comparable to a hyped up groupie welling up within him. "Album 2, Plugged In, Track 5, Wired Life."

"That's one of my personal favorites, actually." She gave him an approving nod before cracking a wry grin that was directed towards her sister. "I can see why you like him."

"We're just friends," replied both teenagers immediately.

The response had been given in unison. On top of that, they were sporting similar looks of chagrin, accompanied by deep blushes.

Slightly skeptical of the veracity of that statement, Meroko lowered her ears and pushed them to the back of her head. For some reason she felt a little disappointed to hear they weren't dating. Why, looking at the both of them together was enough to make her declare them her new One True Pairing. It just felt right.

"Ah, so you two aren't that intimate?" asked Meroko, making a strange hand gesture. It looked like the signal that you thought someone was crazy, but instead of her twirling her finger next to her head, Meroko drew the loopy spiral in the direction of her free fist.

Garrett was a bit confused until he saw Amber's embarrassment and anger multiply by ten-fold. His friend was wringing the thick white tablecloth so roughly that he thought she would wear a hole in the fabric if she tried hard enough. The signal must have been a family-thing that only had some significance to the two sisters.

"If you mean what I think you do, then, no," bit out Amber in a clipped tone, which allowed Garrett to fully understand her irritation.

"N-Not that I'd object," added Garrett before he could think things through. "It's just that I never got a chance to make a move."

"What?" Amber's head snapped around so fast that she could have gotten whiplash.

Not knowing why he was continuing down this dangerous path, Garrett looked off into the distance, tracing a circle in the tablecloth. "I mean, I never knew if you liked me or if you like liked me, but I guess this date means the latter, right?"

For a few seconds Amber opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish, trying to absorb this new information. Of all the times he could spring this on her, it had to be in front of her screwball sister, Meroko.

Speaking of Meroko, she was looking upon the scene with delight, as if it were one of her favorite K-dramas.

"After the most embarrassing kisses—," began Amber, sounding out of breath and incredulous all at once.

"Kisses?" asked Meroko dreamily, wishing she could eat popcorn.

"—of my entire life, you think I don't like you?" Amber blinked repeatedly and shook her head. "Wow. You are one oblivious boy."

"O-oblivious?" said Garrett, feeling only just a little hurt. It was true that he was a bit dense when it came to love, but by the second kiss he had begun to catch on to the idea that she fancied him. It was more like Garrett couldn't believe that she would be interested in someone as plain as him.

After the little scene played out, Meroko giggled hysterically. She looked like she was on the brink of tears from the hilarity.

"You two are just too cute!" she said in between giggles. Tilting her head to the side, she couldn't help but recall her husband. "Now that you mention it, though, Joe was just as oblivious to love. It must be a male thing." At this point, she also stood to leave, her fingertips resting on the table. "But I got to go; I have to prepare to sing later on after the program. You guys do want some good music to dance to, right?"

Meroko waved. "Ciao."

Then there were only two people left sitting at the table, wondering what just had happened.

"Did you plan this?" said Garrett.

Amber shook her head slowly. "Trust me, I didn't."

...

The program had been short, filled with word cruft, and had Amber's father speaking for half of the time. Several other CEOs were invited up, as well. Some of them were given awards. Some of them even gave speeches. All of it was boring if you weren't into Persocoms like a giant nerd, or didn't quite grasp all of the technological lingo. Most likely you didn't understand the latter if you were the former.

As a closing statement, Dr. Lee-Young leaned into the microphone and said his final few words. The half-Japanese half-Korean man raised the champagne glass in his hand and grinned broadly.

"As we begin our marvelous mid-gala banquet, I would like to say these few words in conclusion. And here they are: Nitwit! Flubber! Oddiment! Twerk! Thank you!"

"You dad is—,"

"Don't say it, Garrett," warned Amber, placing a finger over his lips.

Several moments later there were hundreds of butlers taking orders for dinner. They stopped at the table reserved for Amber and her family first, of course. Had to feed the boss and his children well, after all, even if one of them didn't eat. The service was swift, thanks to the 3D food printers in the kitchen, and the butlers, though human, returned just a swiftly.

Apparently, Meroko was fond of the 'new oldies' as everybody called them. Because to start off the night she began singing something by John Newnan, a song called "Love Me Again." She put her own spin on it, actually, turning it into more of a reply to the original, singing from the perspective of the woman in the song. It was a little more jazzy than the original, since this was to be a fancy party.

Jazz was a little hard to dance to, and besides that, Garrett needed a little more time to prepare himself before they went out onto the ballroom. After two more songs, he had enough courage, though, and tried to force down the dark blush that had taken over his entire face.

"Care to dance?" asked Garrett, standing. He extended a palm to his date, who raised an eyebrow as if to say 'finally'.

"You know how to dance?" Amber said in a teasing voice. She took his hand and rose to her feet alongside him.

"I don't just specialize in falling on my butt in karate class."

They walked to the dance floor hand in hand. Below their feet was a pattern of light brown shapes and golden curves. Above them was a massive chandelier the size of two Hummer SUVs that cast miniature rainbows on the ceiling.

Meroko, as she had promised, was still singing for the event. By this point, the tune had changed from slightly-Jazzy to more of a surreal pop song. The live band was grooving along with Meroko, who, despite being in such restrictive eveningwear, was swaying to the beat so convincingly that even some of the most disagreeable people were willing to dance.

"Well, you never went to any dances at school." Staring into Garrett's eyes, Amber swung with him to the music, never letting go of his hand. She could feel his heartbeat thundering, even through the skin of his palm. "I assumed you couldn't do it, that's all."

"You never went to those things, either," he pointed out.

"So long ago, Another life,

I could feel your heartbeat..."

Laughing, she fluttered her eyelashes. "Are you flirting with me, Ravensdale?"

"Fair enough, but you started it. Besides, you already know that I'm a compulsive flirt."

All the joy from a few seconds ago quickly melted into a serious expression. Swallowing her pride, Amber gazed into his face. "Garrett, I have something to tell you. You've been my best friend for a while, but there is something about me that you need to know."

"It's not a dream, remember us,

I can see it in your eyes"

The chandelier. It had seemed so secure only moments before. Amber and Garrett were dancing right under the glimmering shards of death, ignorant of the crystalline structure that was swaying dangerously back and forth.

"We'll find a place in time,

A place in time to call our home."

This was sudden. Secrets in the middle of the dance floor? Amber was certainly full of surprises tonight. Now she was being vague about this supposed secret, but if she were saying it in a public place like this, it must have been something that she was keeping only from him. "Tell me? What, like a secret? You know me; I've got a mind with 64-bit encryption."

That joke made her chuckle a bit, despite her trying to be more solemn.

"Very funny, you big nerd. But I'm being serious."

"We'll find a place in time,

A place in time beyond the sun,"

There was a giant creaking noise resembling the sound of a metal door hinge squeaking open. A moment afterwards, a loud, echoing crack from the ceiling caused only a handful of people in the ballroom to look upwards.

"We'll find a place in time,

A place in time to call our home."

Garrett and Amber seemed to have looked up at the perfect moment. In that moment, her brown eyes widened in fear. She could see the large link that was holding the chandelier to the ceiling. It was wrenched open like a coconut cleaved open with a rock. The metal was bending—stretching, actually. It wasn't long before the chandelier was going to slip off.

Only a second after she saw the danger, the situation became even worse.

Now the unstable decoration was plummeting onto the ballroom where several hundred people were dancing, completely unaware of the danger that had been wobbling above them.

Seconds before the dangling ornament crushed their skeletons, someone whispered a single word.

"Reflexio!"

All of the LED lights embedded in crystal exploded upwards in waves. From the smallest tier, going upwards the pieces separated from the silver rings that were part of the ornament's base. A mass of rainbows refracted off of the thousands of little pieces skittering into the air.

"Did you—," began Garrett, the horror on his now ashen face mirroring the looks of everyone else in the room.

"Shhhh," said Amber, placing a finger over his lips.

All of the lights in the ballroom simultaneously shut off, and they were left in darkness. Every single Persocom activated their infrared vision, and the darkness was filled with colorful dots glowing in the dark.

A softness pressed against Garrett's lips—a familiar one he had felt only thrice before.

Years Later...

Magenta hair streaked with a single lock of dirty blonde, the short bangs swept over her forehead lightly. A small oval face of a child, with eyes closed, belonged to the full-sized Persocom that sat in still, pale, silence in the middle of the room.

Despite being considered a full-sized model, the body was the height and appearance of a child.

From the design alone, you could tell from which company she had been manufactured.

A high-end model from Gala Inc., with specs comparable to one of the luxury Persocoms from KESS, she was more than aesthetically pleasing—she was what the Japanese would call Kawaii. Worldwide, Gala was known to tailor to the premium market, with music producers or digital artists buying over 50% of their full-sized inventory. Governmental contracts took up the other 25%, and the smaller units were more popular with the general population.

Their operating systems, especially on the mobile platform, was one of the highest praised. However, it was also one of the most complex systems known. NEIS or Picosoft was known to be a competitor, in terms of software. NEIS often developed its own operating systems, but Picosoft was still the more popular choice. On the other end of the spectrum, KESS had to be a more direct competitor, as both it and Gala sold Persocoms with an ESC, or Emotional Software Cortex. Gala had their own version of an ESC from the beginning, but once KESS decided to try their hand at the ESC, they had to really step up their game.

However, all of that aside, the task ahead was not going to be easy at all.

What they were going to do was comparable to a symphony, in terms of length and difficulty. Amber was the conductor. Kojima was the concert master. Minoru was the Strings. Garrett would be the guy banging on the grand piano. Yuzuki, Anthy, and Yuki were the Brass and Woodwinds section. Last but not least, Kotoko was the soloist.

Two connectors right above the base of her neck, hidden within the bundles of pink hair, stretched from the unmoving unit, extending to two workstations. From these two workstations, three cables from each extended outwards, snaking around on the floor. One cable was connected to Garrett. The next was connected to Kotoko. Yuzuki, Anthy, and Yuki had connections as well. From Yuzuki, three more cables extended. She was also plugged into Yuki and Anthy, as well as an additional workstation, where Minoru was seated.

At the first two workstations, Amber and Kojima were getting themselves set up. To transfer all of Sumomo's data into a new body, especially that of a different model, would be very involved. Amber had insisted on using a body from Gala, as she refused to support Reishinka, no offense to Minako, but she didn't care for the programming architecture at all. Kojima agreed with her on that point, despite Minoru's pouting face. Reishinka was one of his favorite companies. Yuki and Anthy were from Reishinka, as well as Yuzuki.

You could run Picosoft on a Gala system, but it'd be better if they extracted the data and converted everything, just for the sake of consistency. Fewer errors happened this way.

Holding the tiny mobile unit that once had called her friend, Kotoko took a cable from within one of her bells and snapped it into the little unit. Kotoko was sitting beside Kojima, and in front of his workstation was a contraption similar to a 3D printer. In the base of the machine where the printing head would normally hover, was a clear ball the size of a fist. It was secured within the unit by three metal prongs. However, this machine was not a 3D printer, but a laser inscription unit. Using a low energy laser, the 'system image' of the old crystal would be etched using pulses of pale blue light. It would be the outlines of sentience.

"Kojima. You hooked up all the connectors?" Amber was typing away at her own station as she spoke.

Checking the last of the cables, Kojima gave a thumbs up. "Securing the last one right now; this isn't my first rodeo."

"Garrett, Ladies, you ready to interpret the code?"

"All systems go," said Garrett, his normally blue eyes gaining a red tint. It'd been a long time since he unleashed the full power of his processing capacity, and he was raring to go.

"Ready," Yuzuki affirmed. Her face was serious and stern, as if she were officiating a business meeting. She had remembered the little mobile unit, and as long as the AI crystal was still whole, the spunky little Persocom was still considered "alive." From what she knew, Sumomo's crystal was fractured, which was serious, but the only way to "save" her was to transfer her into a new body. To say that Yuzuki was the first of the Minoru's Persocoms who volunteered to help was not inaccurate.

"Ready," Anthy said cheerily. She was just happy to help, and, she preferred this to cleaning any day.

"All things are operational," said Yuki in her same monotone. She had felt some sympathy for the tiny 'com, and although she would not show it, felt like smacking the human who had hurt the little dear.

Amber glanced over to the woodwinds. "Kotoko, are you ready to inscribe?"

Taking one last glance at the unresponsive body of Sumomo in her hands, Kotoko nodded. Even if she had been annoying in the past, Sumomo had been her friend. This was the least she could do for her.

"Ready."

It had taken over four hours to get Kotoko transferred into the body she had now, and even then, all of Kojima's other Persocoms had been plugged into the other unit, guiding the process. He had almost hacked into Chii using them, so it had been quite a bit of computing power backing up the process. It had taken four Persocoms alone to transcribe Kotoko's soul into the new medium. That was due to the many facets of her personality, but the complexity of the delicate work was most of the problem.

Now, Kotoko had prepared to do that on her own.

"Alright. Commence transfer." Her voice flat and expressionless, Amber spoke at a speed comparable to a caffeine high as she pounded the last values into the console. "Go!" The words and numbers flew down the screen at a rate no normal human could possibly read. However, Amber Lee-Young was not just a 'normal human'. All of the data was flowing from the old body, and pouring into console, which was showing the process for her to analyze.

"Compiling data..." Amber followed the numbers before her. A sea of ones and zeroes cascaded past her eyes in epileptic patterns. "…transferring over to you, Garrett."

Several packets were sent over to the blue-eyed unit who had been so excited before.

"Parsing strings," said Garrett. Behind his eyes, flashes of light were streaking across his irises. A light blue ring surrounding his pupil was pulsing at an even rhythm.

"Yuzuki, help Garrett to sort through the strings and translate," directed Amber. She monitored the flow of data closely. From the numbers coming back from Garrett and the rest, they weren't heating up much. Their internal temperatures were consistent, and the overall CPU usage hadn't even peaked over ten percent.

From her console, Amber continued to direct the computational symphony. "Anthy, Yuki, begin error-checking. When you're done, send Kojima, Minoru, and I the erroneous strings." Some of the bits of code were damaged, due to the fracture of the previous crystal. However, since the crystal's old pattern was going to be transferred, there were bound to be errors left. Most likely, Sumomo would have a bit of problems when she woke up, even if the process when as planned. "Minoru, Kojima, stay sharp. I need you to help me write the patches."

A soft whirring resonated between the machines as they neatened up the strings and cleaned up the overall code.

"Kotoko, start transcribing."

Now, on to the most important part. It would take most of her concentration, but she was ready. Now that the data was being secured within the new brain, Kotoko had the work of drawing a new soul. Ever since the incident with Chii crashing her, she felt…different. But in a good way. It was like opening her eyes anew, and she was experiencing things with more depth and feeling than ever before. Upon later inspection of her system, Kotoko found that Chii had inadvertently etched a strange pattern onto her AI crystal. It had been working in connection the odd program that the little blonde sent to everyone when she went berserk, and the combination of the two was responsible for Kotoko feeling so different.

From the tip of the laser, a blue light shot out, connecting with the crystal. Revolving around the clear sphere, the laser flashed. Flowery fractals appeared in the medium. Vine-like threads branched out in all directions.

As Kotoko read the old crystal, she could see it decay at an exponential rate. The trick was to inscribe the image she saw as she was seeing it. During the whole procedure, Kotoko did not dare open her eyes.

Sumomo's AI crystal was very floral in nature. Some of the facets resembled the leaves of a lotus flower stretching towards heaven. Other designs inside of the little structure included the silhouettes of barren rose bushes and patches of daisies.

Kotoko pulled back her consciousness and let another part of her mind do the etching. Something odd was happening to her. As she gazed upon the crystal, it felt as if she were reliving events that she had not experienced. Although she was not interpreting the memory files, Kotoko had seen memories.

It was a surreal feeling to be in two places at once, so she promptly let her logic center do the etching by itself, withdrawing her feelings entirely. The process could not slow down, of course, because the crystal would cool, and the etching would be incomplete. So, sitting in the darkness, Kotoko continued her work, surveying the fanciful patterns before her.

"98%...99%...100% completion."

After quite some time, Kotoko heard herself say this, and she opened her eyes.

…

Hideki stepped away from the back of Sumomo's new body and balked at the unconscious girl. The AI crystal took no time to cool, and immediately after it was finished, Amber directed Hideki to install it into the primed body. After fiddling around with a few gestures, Amber had opened the back of Sumomo's head and instructed the tall young man on how to install the crystalline structure. After it was placed correctly, the crystal began to glow a deep purple color.

"D-Did it work?" asked Hideki, looking upon the 'rebirth' of this girl with awe.

Soft light glowed behind the beautifully designed eyes as they slid open to examine their surroundings. Stunning plum-colored eyes rimmed with dark pink eyelashes. Rings of bright pink lined the iris, and wire-thin, almost invisible, bands of lavender lined the outside and middle of the optics.

A yawn escaped the tiny doll-like mouth. The newly awakened Persocom stretched and rubbed her right eye.

"Sumomo, are you okay?" asked Amber.

After a moment of blinking away what looked like drowsiness, Sumomo sat upright and addressed everyone with a cheery smile.

"Good evening, everyone!"

Her wide, youthful eyes scrolled around the room. Hundreds more parameters than usual were flooding into her vision. So many people were staring at her. What was going on here? Sumomo's last relevant memory was of when that nice lady in the repair shop was giving her a checkup.

"Sumomo feels different. Why does Sumomo's mind feel so strange? Ownership has been manually terminated from the last registered users. Please state the new confirmation code."

No one moved for a few seconds. No one spoke for a few seconds.

Amber nudged the taller boy. "Hideki, you need to give her the confirmation code."

"Oh, right," said Hideki, taking out the slim book that came with the body they had shipped here. Gala was infamous for giving minimal to no instructions along with their equipment, but they did have a lot of handy pre-installed applications and programs, so that more than made up for the overall vagueness of operation. Often, you would only have a pair of wireless headphones and the confirmation number in the package, if you were lucky.

Hideki looked through the three-page book and found it easily. "Um, it says it here in the booklet. Page 2. V-G- zero-zero- X - K- Y two- seven- dash- B."

"Confirmed," said the girl, blinking. The lavender band of light within her eyes pulsed in and out to the rhythm of a heartbeat. "Sorry. Sumomo already knows your name, but please state it yourself to initiate the voice print recognition, please!"

"Motosuwa, Hideki."

Reviewing all the fun new information in her head, Sumomo nodded in appreciation. Clapping her hands together lightly, she asked "Would you like me to download the latest updates?"

"Not right now, no." Shaking his head, Hideki scratched his cheek nervously. "Er, Sumomo, is it okay if I changed your name a little?"

Without missing a beat, the little Persocom jump to her feet. Her little pink dress swayed as she did, and the tiny matching sandals made little tok noises when she landed. "That is noooooo problem!" announced the little girl. "Editing designation now, so please enter new values."

Hideki looked as he were about to hesitate again, so Amber poked him in the ribs with her elbow. "I-If anyone asks, you're to go by the name Sumomo Motosuwa, if that's alright with you?"

It had been agreed that Kojima and Minoru both had too many Persocoms to shelter another, as much as they did not want to admit it. If they could afford it, they would have gladly added to their already-large electric bills. On the other foot, Amber currently had her hands full with Garrett, the pervert. Which left Hideki, who had merely his lovely girlfriend Chii. Originally, it had been Chii who had suggested that Sumomo take Hideki's last name. She already considered herself his wife, despite not being married to him, yet. Therefore, this was Chii's cute little idea of 'playing house', and she had so much to teach her new 'child' despite meeting her several times before!

"Alright, Master Hideki!" chimed Sumomo brightly, changing her name within seconds.

Abashed, Hideki covered his face. "Please, don't call me 'Master', Sumomo; that just feels gross."

Upon hearing this, the little Persocom started the flex the new logic circuits in her brain. Before, her thoughts had been so simple, but now, it was as if her whole consciousness had expanded by a thousand-fold. If Master did not want her to call him 'Master', and she was to be called by his surname, what did that mean? This new body was that of a child's design, around ten years old, Sumomo reasoned, so either he should be 'Big Brother' or 'Papa'. Although it was more logical to call him 'Oniichan', considering his age, the other designation was sounding far more interesting.

Sumomo, after processing this for 400 milliseconds, blinked and smiled amiably. The circular bands of light were pulsing much faster than before—a sure sign of her excitement.

"Does that mean I can call you Papa?"

Stunned, Hideki's mouth opened, but he could form no sound to protest this.

"Chii!" agreed Hideki's girlfriend in joy.

Let me love you

I want to make you happy

Is it worth it to never fall in love?

Love circulates around us, but

You want to deny it

You say I flatter you, but

You pretend that you hate it

I see the smile tugging at the scowl

Let me love you

We all care about someone who's dying

I do know Ms. Hibiya uses her maiden name, but for the sake of the story, before Dr. Mihara's death, they're both just referred to as 'Dr. Mihara.' Also, I'm sure that you probably could not tell through the text, but Amber and her sister have a light Californian/valley-girl accent when speaking English. Plus, things have been really normal, recently, haven't they? I just didn't want to overload you all with MAGIC MAGIC MAGIC.