I pray for the blessing of the God of the Black Flame! Lord Canti, I am your meek servant, the wielder of the black flame. Please, fill me with your holy spirit.
Wandering through the back alleys, Mamimi heard the stray cats meow. Then, between the twilight buildings, she spotted the figure of a robot playing with the cats.
"Lord Canti."
She smiled.
It was the beginning of her holy life.
Naota used a pay phone on his street to try calling Mamimi's cell phone—but apparently, she'd turned off hers. No one answered at her home phone number, either.
She wasn't at Mabase Bridge, so he had no choice but to go and look for her.
Where have you gone?
It was time for dinner, but Naota knew he couldn't go home now. He had to look for Mamimi. He had to find her and be with her. Intuitively, he knew this.
He dearly regretted having lost sight of Mamimi just a little while ago. They'd been together a few moments. She'd been sitting right next to him.
It sank in that all he did was make mistakes. Mamimi was slipping away from him—a little farther today than yesterday, a little more now than then.
"You there."
When he looked up, he saw a policeman standing next to a patrol car.
"You live around here, don't you?" asked the policeman. "You haven't seen a suspicious-looking high school girl nearby recently, have you?"
A suspicious-looking high school girl…?
For a second, Naota's heart stopped.
"You've heard about the arsons around here," the cop continued. "What a horrible person… You don't know anything? You haven't heard any rumors about the culprit at school?"
"Hey," Naota heard another cop from the patrol car call, "look over there!"
The sky had turned red. It was a fire.
Mamimi…
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. No, I haven't heard any word from him. I recruited one of the enemy robots, but it's proving pretty useless."
Haruko was in Naota's room, apologizing and bowing. This was atypical behavior from her, given how outrageous, unruly, savage, and generally over-the-top she was.
She was alone in the room, with the exception of Miyu Miyu, who sat on the bed and looked out the window. The flames of a faraway blaze reflected in the cat's eyes.
"That…"
Haruko noticed the fire. She hurriedly opened the window, stepped outside, and walked out on the balcony.
She heard the sound of sirens coming from the river.
The fire was at a small boathouse, located on the riverside. It was an uninhabited two-story vessel.
Very quickly, a crowd of people formed around it. With the recent arson spate, everyone had become very jittery. Among the gathered people, there was much speculation that this, too, was arson. Usually, no one spent much time around this area, so everyone wondered why there'd be an accidental fire in a place like that.
The small building burned splendidly.
It was fortunate there were no buildings nearby, but the flames were high—and powerful enough that complete destruction was unavoidable.
Sparks from the flames danced up into the sky.
Naota was part of the crowd; they were cast in a red glow. Stunned, he watched the blaze.
That's right. A real fire is hot like this.
Naota recalled the last fire he'd witnessed: It was the burning school Tasuku and he had watched together. Back then, Naota had been in kindergarten.
Fire… that's it!
Suddenly, Naota realized he'd remembered a place where Mamimi might be hiding. Maybe she'd be there now. Maybe she was crying.
At the charred site of the Mabase School, the wooden building's remains stood under a coating of ash. Nearby residents sometimes used the grounds to garden.
From the section of the old school garden located on the riverbank, the boathouse fire could be seen on the opposite shore. The river reflected the blaze, and the fire engines roared from across the way.
On this side, the school garden was as dark and quiet as a theater box. As if it were onstage, being watched by an audience, the fire across the river was a curiously unreal, fantastic scene.
Mamimi…
Just as Naota had guessed, she was there. The dark schoolyard was lit up with small red lights. It seemed she had put cigarettes in the ground instead of candles.
What are you doing?
Illuminated by the fire from the other shore, Mamimi strangely swayed in time to some internal rhythm. When she stood, she reached her arms up to the sky; then, she crouched down, hanging her head to pray. It looked like a ritual dance.
No, maybe she intended it to be an actual ritual. When Naota looked closer, he could see Mamimi was drawing a magic symbol with her feet.
Nearby, Canti stood, unmoving. The robot looked like part of her ritual, but he was merely a passive observer.
"Mamimi," Naota called.
She looked back at him with cold eyes—the eyes of a witch, interrupted in the middle of casting her spell.
"Why did you come here?"
Naota tried passing her the game machine he still held. "Here."
"I don't need it anymore. It's yours."
He didn't have any response.
"Do you remember the fire here?" Mamimi was looking at the old school building. "No, you wouldn't remember. You were so small back then."
Though he didn't reply, Naota did remember that fire six years ago.
That was when everything had started.
It had been right before the start of spring.
That night, Naota nearly had fallen asleep when the town fire alarms began to ring.
Naota had asked his brother what the commotion was.
Tasuku opened the window to look outside and said, "A fire. It looks like the school. Let's go and see."
Sneaking out in the middle of the night was a big deal to the young Naota. He thought about going to see the fire with his brother, and his heart jumped a little. It was a rare chance for an evening adventure. Anyway, no matter what might happen, Tasuku was with him, so he would be okay.
Everyone was headed toward the fire. Mabase Elementary School—which Tasuku still attended back then, and where Naota would begin the following year—crackled with flames.
To Naota's young eyes, the fire was a glorious sight. He was excited by the waves of heat, which he hadn't experienced before.
It's so warm, isn't it, brother?
His brother told him not to say that kind of thing.
In the wide schoolyard, a large number of people gathered.
"Wait here for a minute," Tasuku said, disappearing into the crowd.
Suddenly, Naota felt uneasy. He wasn't that far from home, but he was uncomfortable being left alone in what felt like an alien world.
"Brother! Where are you, brother?" he yelled, running after Tasuku.
Despite his brother's orders, Naota ran after him, searching desperately. The fear that his brother had gone to the other side spurred him on.
How long had he looked around? The school building had two stories. In the back of the unburned part of the building, Naota finally found Tasuku: his safety blanket, his brother.
Tasuku was with a girl Naota didn't recognize. She was bigger than Naota, but smaller than Tasuku. It looked like she had been crying. When Tasuku spotted Naota, his brother gently stroked the girl's hair and laughed that his little brother had followed him.