Amid the unpredictable chaos and disaster that had surrounded him ever since she'd arrived, Naota had held on to the ill-defined situation with Mamimi… and bit by bit, something between them had changed.
Probably, above all, he himself had changed, Naota felt. He was stronger. Different from before. Tougher. More manly. He had saved the town. He had grown up, and the world had opened to him. Now, Mamimi was jealous of his relationship with Haruko. Mamimi was in love with him. Now… now, he was going to be able to pursue his relationship with Mamimi.
"How about here?"
Finally, Naota stopped in front of a small coffee shop. Of course, elementary school kids couldn't go into coffee shops unaccompanied. But that was why Naota had chosen a coffee shop. He was going to break the school rules and shatter the stagnant situation, all with one stone. He was going to do today all the things he hadn't done, the things he wasn't allowed to do. He was going to become someone new. His heart was pounding, but he opened the door to the coffee shop, maintaining the pretense of being cool.
"Are we going in?"
"Is there a problem?"
"Why this coffee shop?"
"You came here with my brother, didn't you?"
A coffee shop—a place Naota considered to be where real lovers spent time together and shared real words of love together. If they could spend time here together, then it would mean they were real lovers.
Though Naota's thinking was a bit humorous, the fact was that it wasn't that far from the truth. You might say it was unexpectedly accurate.
By the river, the two of them had played around like lovers— but only when they were on the riverbank. The pair had never had anything more than a riverbank relationship. Naota had noticed at some point that the riverbank was simply the place where Mamimi spent time with her "substitute" boyfriend. That was part of the reason Naota had brought her to this coffee shop. Today; we're going to go from a riverbank relationship to a coffee shop relationship.
But at about this time, Mamimi managed to break loose from Naota's grip. Angrily, she said, "What are you doing?"
"What?"
"Why are you doing this?"
"But don't you—" like me, was what he was about to say, but he suddenly got nervous and couldn't say it.
Mamimi looked really angry. She was really angry that he had brought her to a coffee shop. She looked as though she didn't like this.
Naota grew anxious. Was he wrong? Did Mamimi not like him? But then why was she jealous of Haruko?
"This is because of Haru, isn't it?" Mamimi asked.
Naota managed to get a little of his confidence back when he heard that. He'd been right: Mamimi was jealous of Haruko. She did like him. Yeah, she likes me, so there's no point in being nervous.
"Don't worry," Naota said. "I'm not involved with her."
"How much do you like Haru?"
"No, I like—"
"Takkun, you like Haru, don't you?"
What are you saying?
Mamimi was looking at Naota sadly. Behind her eyes were thoughts that Naota couldn't comprehend. In the overconfident state that Naota was now in, he wasn't able to understand the meaning of the loneliness in her eyes.
Mamimi had watched Naota messing around with Haruko on the riverbank with sadness—but it wasn't with a jealous heart as Naota had suspected; Naota had it wrong.
The truth was that, as she'd watched him hit the satellite, Mamimi had seen a certain kind of manliness in Naota. And although seeing something more manly in Naota had improved her opinion of him as a man, it didn't mean that she now desired him. In fact, it was precisely the opposite: Manly Naota was not what she wanted. What Mamimi needed was a substitute Takkun.
Naota had lost interest in being a substitute, but Mamimi didn't need him as anything but a substitute. She didn't need a manly Naota, because to Mamimi, a real man was someone who might throw her away..
Of course, that was Mamimi's made-up logic. It would have been useless to try to explain to Naota.
Mamimi looked down at Naota silently; however, Naota could see only Mamimi's soft lips. There they were, a boy and a girl, each with thoughts not understood by the other.
Naota stood on his tiptoes… Naota stood on his tiptoes, grabbed Mamimi, and tried to kiss her.
But Mamimi turned her face away and refused him.
"What's the matter?" Naota yelled at her. "You like me, don't you?"
The loneliness was in Mamimi's eyes.
And at that moment—KACHIN!—the horn inside the hood at the back of his head, the hammer of a double action-type pistol, moved.
The time was 3:32 pm.
With a loud pistol shot, something unnatural fired out from between Naota's eyebrows.
That was the beginning of the massive transformation.
Chapter 4
What had fired out from was not a small thing like a bullet; rather, what flew from his forehead with incredible force was a liquid metal not unlike a jet of water from a fire engine's water cannon.
All Naota's previous strange horns were robots that had used Naota's head as a route, allowing them to pop out from the other side. Those past experiences hasn't been particularly pleasant. Naota expected this one would turn out to be the same kind of humanoid robot as the others, and he prepared himself for that horrible feeling once more.
But… this time things were a bit different from his other extraordinary experiences.
"It's overflowing from Takkun!"
Even Mamimi, who had witnessed such a thing happen before, was sitting down on the ground and staring dumbfounded in amazement. She wasn't incredulous in regard to the incident happening, but she was blown away by the size of the incident.
This new projection was already a lot larger than the past robots that had come out, and it just kept on coming from Naota's head with incomparable momentum and speed. The thing was of an unimaginable scale, and it just kept coming and coming, like a never-ending snake firework.
That liquid metallic snake firework soared into the sky above Mabase, where it started to gather into a giant ball before morphing into a particular shape. It was a weird sight, almost like watching a clay model of a skyscraper take form.
And because of its size, the spectacle could be seen from anywhere in Mabase.
At the riverbank, Kitsurubami, who had been doting over Canti, opened her eyes wide with surprise. "What is that?"
Engaging his gravitational controls, Canti suddenly floated up and flew off into the sky.
The Masamune truck that Naota's classmates had been driving by the side of the river came to a sudden stopped. Intuitively, Masashi had hit the brakes. The three truck passengers sucked in their breath at the huge shape they saw developing in the sky.
"Let's go take a look," Ninamori said to the boys.
Realizing the danger, the city residents started to evacuate. But a massive blackout, caused the traffic lights to go out on the chaotic roads, resulting in traffic jams near the intersections. People started climbed out of their cars and running—which would've caused a much greater panic if Mabase hadn't been blessed with a small resident population.
In the sky above the chaos, the MM factory siren blared out.
Inside the MM Mabase Factory, a medical machinery site with the exterior shape of an iron that was situated on a large hill in Mabase, a host computer started receiving battle reports.
«MMR Class [B].GH manifested in Mabase. Manifestation configuration M mode. 15:33.
Manifestation area is 1600 meters from Mabase plant 15:33.