Chapter Text
In the week and a half since Meiru had become a Net Savior, things had become bizarrely routine, compared to how it had been with Netto.
Every morning, at about quarter to seven, Enzan woke up, dressed in a simple T-shirt and running shorts, and plugged Blues into the simulation machine to run training programs while he laced up his shoes and did a few basic stretches. Then, he left the townhouse he’d called home since accepting IPC’s vice presidency at a run, pace increasing gradually until he was just a bit under his top speed.
Densan’s primary source of industry was in tech. There was rarely anyone else awake this early, save for the occasional poor soul stumbling their way home after an all-nighter. It was just Enzan and his thoughts, and lately those had been stuck on Beyondard. Staring up at the angelic form of R-Rockman and feeling so painfully useless. And if it wasn’t Beyondard, it was Cache. Unable to breathe with lungs that no longer existed, having just enough awareness left to call out to Netto, because only Netto and Rockman would be able to handle something that could change reality itself. What Enzan could do was satisfactory; what Netto could do was impossible.
And now Netto was gone. He would never save them like that again.
The Japanese Net Savior program was on thin ice without him, fighting against both public perception and whatever would emerge to tangle with them next. And so, as they’d decided in that emergency meeting after Enzan had picked Meiru up from the power plant, the approach they were taking had to change as well. It didn’t matter that Meiru wasn’t even as capable a Netbattler as Enzan, himself now feeling like he had simply been an accessory to Netto’s greatest feats. She and Roll were competent enough to consistently defeat the average human-and-Navi pair, and they desperately needed someone there to make this look like a job a thirteen-year-old boy wasn’t facing alone. Like a fun little Sunday-morning adventure, as Meijin had put it. Enzan had no idea what he was talking about, as usual, but his tone implied that they were meant to make it look easy and safe.
So though nobody had outright demanded it of him, there was no choice; Enzan had to become stronger, to make up for the seemingly infinite power they’d lost. If he was going to make it all seem effortless on top of that, he no longer had room for error. He had to think faster, move sooner, adapt quicker. That idea was like a mantra, a week and a half into this new training regimen; it kept him from letting his form slip, even when exhaustion was rapidly attempting to set in.
It didn’t matter which roads he took; he could even try taking an alternate path to reach the band of streets he used as his route. He would always look to the side ten minutes in and see his new partner there, her face grimly set, running just a step behind.
He had never taken Meiru to be this athletic. She’d kept up with him in Beyondard to the best of her ability, but she’d always been exhausted and ready to stop by the time he was just beginning to get tired. None of the other girls he’d gotten to know seemed to be huge fans of this kind of exercise, either, this pushing to the edges of his speed and endurance. Even Netto had never joined him on one of these morning runs back when they were only a few times a week and half this length and speed; he’d offered once, and Netto had asked him if he was crazy. But there Meiru was, huffing and puffing after him. There she stayed, as the minutes dragged on, in his peripheral vision through residential streets and past shop windows, day in and day out.
She would always get visibly tired first, often having to stumble to a walk in the last stretch, but she wouldn’t ask to stop until he was beginning to slow as well. Knowing that, he shifted his focus to maintaining this pace, even though he could feel his own body becoming desperate for relief. It made him feel uncomfortable to see her struggling like this day after day, when by this point in the run neither of them were enjoying this ordeal. All Meiru needed to do was show up at the Ministry in the afternoon; she didn’t need to impress him, or whatever she thought she was doing here.
But maybe if she thought it was hopeless she’d finally give up and let him struggle by himself, which was self-inflicted and therefore perfectly fine. Enzan didn’t let himself slow, even though he could barely get any air into his burning lungs. The mantra was the only thing left in his head; he had to get stronger, he had to be faster, Netto wouldn’t be coming to save him now—
A jolt to his right foot; he felt more than heard himself trip, and barely managed to regain his balance. He was alone, thankfully. But even though it was what he’d intended, he felt oddly disappointed that there was no head of red hair in his peripheral vision. Awareness returned to him all at once; he was on the outskirts of town, his running clothes were soaked through, his head and heart were pounding, and he couldn’t seem to regain his breath no matter what he did. This was definitely not a presentable state for someone of his position to be in, whether in relation to IPC or the Net Police. The air slicing through his throat as he gasped it in, Enzan turned around.
On the far end of the street, at least half a kilometer away, her hair soaked and fallen over her face like a bright distress flag, Meiru was crumpled onto the sidewalk. For a moment, Enzan thought he was going to be sick; how could he have not noticed? His alarm gave him a short-lived second wind; he ran to her side, then fell more than crouched next to her.
He was fairly certain that the gentlemanly thing to do in this case was to apologize, but he couldn’t get enough air to say a word. He could hear her quietly gasping, though her breath seemed to catch in her throat from time to time. He desperately hoped it wasn’t what it sounded like, and he hadn’t made her cry.
When both of their breathing had slowed to normal and Meiru lifted her head, she was red-faced, visibly overheated, but dry-eyed. Enzan regained his own composure with one decisive breath, and helped her to her feet. They walked back in the vague direction of the city center in silence.
“Nice run!” Meiru said once they were back into a familiar part of town, exhaustion making her smile slightly manic.
“Same to you,” came out of Enzan’s mouth instead of I’m sorry or It’s not your job to push yourself so hard.
“See you later,” she said.
“See you,” he returned, and then they both turned to go their separate ways for the day.
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Enzan showered the sweat off of himself and changed into his new ‘everyday’ clothes with weakened hands and trembling legs. That run really had been a bit much, even for him.
He forced his fingers through the familiar motions to knot his tie. He’d been told, in a tone that left no room for doubt, that he was no longer to wear attire inappropriate for someone of his status. He was almost fourteen, and too old for that now. And so his comfortably loose shirts and pants were banished to the back of the closet, replaced by suits and ties. He’d gotten away with wearing a red dress shirt instead of a white one sans comment, but that was as far as he’d dared to push it.
Of course, Enzan’s father knew the best tailors in Densan City. The suit didn’t restrict his movement at all, fitting like a second skin as it was meant to. But it was still made of stiffer fabric than his old clothes, and it was meant to present him in a more refined way, too. He’d habitually been mindful of his movements and surroundings, but now there was an extra bit of pressure from having to be so he didn’t stain his suit.
He missed wearing those loose, thoughtless old clothes, if he let himself. But he missed Netto, too, and he wasn’t coming back, either. It was useless to think on either of them. He had no time for tears, as ever.
Blues had been training even longer than Enzan had by the time he was plugged out of the simulator in Enzan’s bedroom, but he showed no sign of strain. Enzan needed to become that sharp; he allowed himself a moment of frustration at his present limits, then pushed it out and away. “The IP Clear proposal is in your inbox, with your signature expected on it by tomorrow,” Blues greeted without preamble. “You have a meeting scheduled at two, but no other events.”
“Then I’m taking the day to look through that for myself,” Enzan decided. “Thank you, Blues.”
He usually enjoyed the walk from the townhouse to IPC Tower; watching the city wake up around him, thousands of individuals coalescing into its heart once more. The run had drained him, though, so he found himself thoughtlessly watching the sky instead, clouds slowly scrolling out from behind the skyscrapers.
Enzan had been drilled on the names of the people who worked directly under him in IPC Tower when he’d first been given the vice-presidency. Now he knew that every one of them was important, and had made a point to learn the names of the other office workers he regularly encountered as well. “Careful, Kitamura-san,” he warned the woman rushing by just as he had every morning for the past two years, before she could powerwalk straight into the elevator doors.
“Oh!” The Chief Archival Officer shuffled to a stop just in time, shifting her grip on the bankers boxes stacked well over her head. “Thanks, Ijuuin-san!” Before he could ask, she told him, “I’m going up to R&D, floor thirty-nine.”
“Got it,” he said, punching in both her destination and his own—floor forty-eight, the vice president’s suite.
“I guess the board changed their mind again,” Kitamura sighed as the elevator started moving.
“The year-long delay until the next PET release has been reinstated, yes,” Enzan agreed. “It’ll give the hologram technology time to mature, and we’ll make up for it in cosmetics sales.”
“More faceplates!” sighed Kitamura. “In ten years nobody’ll even remember the faceplate they put on their Link PET. Look at how fast we ditched the Advance, with all those colorways. And the grip options on the Progress!” Kitamura was passionate about her vocation; it was what made her such a thorough archivist. “The holograms are nice and all, but a real power user would never pick those over what we had on the Progress…”
“We’ve got a lot of casual users in Japan, as it turns out,” Enzan said with a wry smile. “Ameroupe’s crazy for them, too.”
“I don’t get it…” With a prompt ping and a whoosh of air, the elevator had arrived at Kitamura’s destination. “Anyway, have a good one!”
“You too,” Enzan said with a genuine smile. It was always entertaining to listen to Kitamura’s perspective.
The elevators in IPC Tower were swift; in less than five seconds, the doors had opened onto the familiar sight of Mori-san at her desk. Among her bewildering array of tchotchkes, she’d set up a dollhouse-sized desk and chair where the hologram of Vidalia, her Navi, could pretend to type on a tiny papercraft keyboard next to her Operator’s terminal.
Marketing had done its research to discover that there was a surprisingly large cohort of adult users who’d skipped straight from the Advance to the Link. They didn’t Netbattle, they adored the holograms, and they had lots of money to spend on cosmetics like the faceplates. It made more sense for the business to cater to them instead of to the typically younger and less independently wealthy Netbattlers, which had surprised most of the building. Enzan was disappointed the Progress PET, with all the Netbattle-focused functions he’d championed, had fallen short in comparison. But he hadn’t been completely caught off guard to hear it confirmed; after all, his own secretary was part of that cohort.
They exchanged greetings, and then Enzan walked past to enter his own office, relatively plain in comparison to Mori’s little slice of herself in his reception room. He sat at his own unadorned desk and pulled up the main subject of the day on his terminal: the IP Clear proposal, for an enterprise-level engine suited to a wide variety of applications.
Blues didn’t say anything next to him, even though Enzan knew he was probably reading along. But he felt his own grip on his armrests tighten involuntarily as he realized what made the IP Clear engine so powerful yet so inexpensive to produce.
It was using already-existing technology in a novel way, producing an engine both relatively foolproof to put together and, in theory, somewhat self-maintaining. The intelligence cores of dozens of Navis, woven together in a massive problem-solving system but retaining enough individuality to be set to different subtasks. And five of them had already been linked together to form a smaller-scale but working prototype, appearing in the cyberworld as a delicate blanket made of Navi innards.
It was ghastly, like a more refined form of how Nebula had powered its Dimensional Converters. But it made sense, in a horrible way. In a completely logical way, to the majority in IPC Tower who had no special partnership with their Navis, who at best thought of them as digital assistants or virtual pets. Things they were happy to have around, but things that were replaceable.
He had to find an argument against it. Not one couched in these sentimental ideas of what those Navis could have been or how they must have felt, but something that would make more sense than this in one way or another. And then he had to go to the Ministry, and hope today wasn’t the day he was put to the test.
He was probably the strongest Netbattler left in Densan City, but that wasn’t going to be enough. It was pathetically meaningless in the face of the IP Clear problem, and it had been nearly as trivial when they’d been staring down Greiga and Falzar.
Enzan let his eyes fall closed. It felt like Netto had been the glue holding Enzan’s life in a comfortable balance, and now everything had fallen apart.
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When Enzan saw Meiru next, it was on the walkway up to the Ministry. Enzan had always arrived long before Netto, but Meiru seemed to have a decent sense of timeliness. She looked the same as usual, clean-faced, not even a strand of hair out of place. Also as usual, she greeted him, “How was your day, Enzan?” as if nothing had happened several hours earlier.
“Normal,” he shrugged.
“Mine too! I got a bunch of school supplies for next month,” she explained brightly.
The trip to the Main Room was usually like this; as quiet as ever, but with Meiru next to him. It wasn’t uncomfortable, even if it was different. Maybe this was how to think of whatever lay ahead of Enzan; as solo missions, just with someone else looking on.
Their arrivals inside the Ministry building had been oddly routine so far, too. Typically, they tracked down Meijin, he told them to remain on standby even though Enzan knew there were things they could be investigating alongside the Net Police, and then Meiru disappeared somewhere for the rest of the afternoon while Enzan pored over the missives from his father and the various development teams around IPC. That way, he could go straight to bed after leaving the Ministry. (It felt downright paradoxical how no longer needing to keep up with Netto’s high energy seemed to have made Enzan more tired.)
But today, Meijin was waiting for them in the Main Room. “Enzan-kun, Meiru-chan,” Meijin greeted.
“Good afternoon, Meijin-san,” Meiru greeted, sounding a bit nervous. To her credit, it seemed she could tell that they were finally about to get an assignment.
“Ah, Meiru-chan, you don’t need to call me that—“
“Where are we headed?” Enzan asked rather than let Meijin derail the meeting.
“Someone’s Navi went missing on an errand to Net City’s high street,” Meijin explained. “Normally that wouldn’t be much to write home about, but the Operator suspects foul play, and he’d like someone to retrace his Navi’s steps. Enzan-kun, Meiru-chan, go to the Operator’s house and investigate.”
“Right away, Meijin,” Enzan said. With a nod of gratitude for foregoing the honorific, Meijin uploaded the coordinates to his PET.
“Enzan-sama, it’ll be half an hour on foot,” Blues reported, displaying a map.
“Hm?” Meiru peered at it for herself. “Oh, this is by that new subway station! There’s a stop by the Ministry of Science, too. We’ll be there in half that time!”
Blues turned his head ever so slightly to stare; Enzan coughed quietly to remind him not to. He’d been on more public transportation in Beyondard than he ever had here at home. “I suggest we call the car,” Blues said.
“Eeeh? Just for this?” Meiru wondered.
“The train won’t hurt you, Enzan-kun! Really!” snickered Meijin.
“Go ahead, Blues,” Enzan ordered as he got to his feet, ignoring Meijin’s antics. “Let’s go, Sakurai.”
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Their destination ended up being in a new development, rows upon rows of identical houses that made Enzan feel like he was on a film set rather than anyplace real.
“I heard someone opened up one of those rolled ice cream places here already!” Meiru remarked as they walked up to the house. “Maybe we should go check it out afterward.”
Enzan had last had the kind of spare time to keep up with trendy street food when he was twelve, before accepting the Net Savior job and considering that what he did with his free time instead. He merely nodded, so Meiru would assume he knew where she was thinking of and was not particularly interested.
As he’d hoped, Meiru sighed. “It might be good, for all you know,” she reminded him. “And then we’d be the first ones to know about it!”
“I doubt we’d find any trace of our missing Navi there,” Enzan said, and proceeded to ring the doorbell.
The person who answered the door was slightly younger than most homeowners around Densan City seemed to be, to Enzan’s surprise. “Oh, you’re the Net Saviors?” he asked, surprised.
Without hesitation, Enzan answered, “Yes. And you must be Kato-san. May we come in?”
“O-of course,” Kato said, seeming a bit unnerved. Little wonder, Enzan supposed, if he was so worried about his Navi he’d call the Net Police about it.
“Nice to meet you, Kato-san,” Meiru added as they entered the house. There was an older couple sitting out of the way in the dining room; was Kato really still living with his parents, at his age? Or was he simply visiting when this had happened?
“I’d sent Lance to Internet City through the entertainment system to order some food,” Kato explained, his hands wringing the edge of his shirt. “The one in the living room, right this way.” At the moment, they were still in the central area they’d entered, with both couches and a modest kitchen set up inside. “But I wasn’t watching him while he was out there, and now he’s gone.”
Kato was obviously not going to be keeping his emotions under control, and he didn’t have anything further he could recall if his story was correct. “I’ll send Blues in to search,” Enzan decided. “Sakurai, stay out here with Kato-san.”
“But I’d like to look for myself…” Meiru protested.
“There’s no need,” Enzan said. “I know how to carry out the investigation and properly document what Blues and I find. You’ll be more help here with Kato-san.”
Meiru was normally an open book; if she was delighted or frustrated or tired or confused, she made little effort to hide it. At the moment, though, her expression was unreadable. “Okay,” she said, oddly subdued. “I’ll wait here.”
Enzan gave her a grateful smile, then entered the living room. There, on the far end, was the entertainment system that Kato had plugged Lance into. “Plug in, Blues! Transmission!”
Blues made his way from the house’s network into Internet City slowly, scanning with his visor while Enzan monitored the output on a window his PET projected.
But there was nothing. No traces of damage, no fluttering scraps of data, no sign of foul play. It was much harder to find a single specific Navi or thing in Internet City, with its rapid turnover and high capacity. But Enzan knew Blues could do it, having done so before. If he wasn’t able to find anything at all, there was probably nothing to find. Lance’s disappearance hadn’t been forceful. Was it just an ordinary spat between an inexperienced Operator and Navi?
“To be honest, Meijin-san seems a little unreliable sometimes, so you probably need to call and ask him in a few weeks if you haven’t heard anything,” Meiru was saying as Enzan reentered the room.
“Just like my boss!” Kato laughed. His earlier concern was totally gone. Meiru really was a natural at her part of the job. He sobered when he saw Enzan, though. “No luck?”
“None,” Enzan confirmed. “Blues and I saw nothing out of the ordinary.”
“We’ll keep an eye out, though,” Meiru said. “And I’ll ask my friends if they’ve heard anything, too!”
Kato seemed to find this idea endearing. “Well, thanks for coming out here, and good luck. You kids have a fun rest of your evening!” Kato said.
“We will!” Meiru cheerfully replied. Enzan raised a hand in a wave farewell, and then both of them left, Blues surreptitiously calling the car back to pick them up.
The sun was already beginning to set. It was fine that Enzan wouldn’t have as early a night as he’d had the past few days; his first mission formally accompanied by Meiru had been more successful than he’d been expecting.
“Hey,” Meiru said.
Something about how shortly she said it warned Enzan to face her.
“We challenge you and Blues to a Netbattle,” Meiru said, her tone deathly serious. “Meet us tomorrow morning when you and I usually run, in the practice room at the Ministry.”
“You aren’t going to win,” Enzan reminded her.
“I don’t care.” Meiru’s hands were balled up at her sides.
“What is this about?”
“I said I’m challenging you! Accept it,” Meiru shouted, the seriousness having boiled over into fury. Before Enzan could say another word, she spun on her heel and stormed away.
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She was going to lose, of course. Had nobody told her why she was there? Enzan needed a ‘partner’ to make all this scrutiny go away, not a partner like Netto had been. He never wanted another partner like that, never again. Even if her company wasn’t disagreeable, she certainly wasn’t good enough to fill those shoes.
(How could she be? Enzan wasn’t even good enough.)
She was going to lose, but there was no need to be unnecessarily cruel about it. He set aside his usual arsenal of Battle Chips to take with him, but he didn’t plan on sending most of them to Blues. All a Navi of Blues’s strength and speed needed to do against a Navi like Roll was strike once, and it would be over.
Enzan rose the next morning with sore, leaden legs and the grim resolve to put his enemy in her place—even one as vibrant as Meiru. He walked the half-hour to the Ministry alone, his mind somewhere far beyond the Densan skyline.
Of course, the Ministry was empty, Enzan’s Net Savior ID admitting him into a dark and dreamlike silence broken only by the morning light shining through the windows. He certainly couldn’t imagine Meijin waking up this early, and even Hikari-hakase was more likely to be sleeping in his office than roaming the hallways.
As he walked deeper into the dark center of the building, Enzan turned on the flashlight function on his PET. But there was one source of light, down the hallway. The practice room, lights on and equipment humming as he reached the door.
“You’re on time,” Meiru greeted him. Inside the practice simulator, Roll waited with the same resolute expression her Operator wore.
“I wouldn’t want to keep you waiting,” Enzan said, walking up to the machine. The practice room seemed different than usual, more cluttered. Enzan realized that there were neat piles of books and papers on and in front of one of the seats mounted to the back wall. Strategy books for Netbattles were a rarity, since it only had patchy support as a professional sport; most of them were for chess and tennis, and thoroughly marked with sticky notes. The papers appeared to mostly be diagrams, of gymnastics moves and ballet steps. “This isn’t a pop quiz, you know,” he commented. “You can’t study your way through this one.”
Meiru’s eyes narrowed. “Just plug in so we can get started.”
Blues touched down in the simulator’s standard battlefield, drawing his sword without hesitation. Roll didn’t even flinch, shifting so her knees were slightly bent.
Operators and Navis sized one another up, the air still; then, the energy in the room seemed to shift, and the fight was on.
Enzan hadn’t been the only one working on improving his agility; Blues was in as fine a form as he’d ever been, rocketing across the battlefield with his sword arm coiled. But Meiru was ready; Roll disappeared in an Area Steal, and then Blues was the one weaving around a Ryuuseigun strike. It was a far cry from when Enzan had first seen Meiru and Roll fight, at the N1, where their moves had been unpracticed and telegraphed to a comical degree.
With Blues occupied, it was Enzan’s role to locate where their opponent had chosen to warp to—or, at the very least, guess. “Above you. Fumikomi Cross!”
At the same time, Meiru called, “Battle Chip: Yo-yo!”
Neither Navi was perfectly in position for their attacks to connect. Blues’s change in position caused Roll’s Yo-yo to shoot under him, but he was a bit too far south of her position to hit her on that first swing. “Samurai Sword!” Enzan called next, but rather than hesitate, Roll reeled herself past Blues and down to the ground with the Yo-yo that had embedded itself there, landing with a perfect somersault despite the speedy landing. Blues touched down across from her without having made contact; but Roll hadn’t succeeded either, and Blues didn’t need to wait around for his next line of attack. He was closing back in on Roll in a heartbeat, the state of play right back to where they’d been at the start but with a more powerful blade on Blues’s arm.
“Tornado, slot-in!” Meiru called next.
Enzan simply commanded, “Destroy it, Blues.”
Blues took a single step backward to skid into a crouch, adjusting the angle of the Samurai Sword, then sprang. With one perfectly-placed slice, he disrupted and dissipated the Tornado—and revealed an Iron Ball underneath. Roll jumped off it as it hurtled toward Blues, one more thing for him to evade.
“You’re playing keep-away,” Enzan noted coolly.
“Not for long,” Meiru shot back. “Dash Condor, slot-in!”
Roll was airborne now—and Enzan didn’t typically carry chips around that would grant Blues the ability to outright chase her. But he could supply, “Fumikomizan!”
It all happened in a second. Blues read the pattern of the Dash Condor perfectly, flew upward to strike it down, and was met with a Gold Fist squarely thrown to his chest, shattering the blade and shooting him down with enough force to crack the floor.
The Gold Fist dissipating from her arm, Roll beamed. “We did it, Meiru-chan!”
“And we’re about to do it again!” Meiru added with premature triumph, allowing Blues the time to struggle to his feet.
Everyone in the room knew that Blues would always win in close range. So Meiru’s strategy was obviously to make Roll’s actual engagement with him short, crude, and decisive. Enzan was fairly certain he knew what would happen if Blues’s attack run wasn’t able to be cut short. “Air Hockey, Suikomi, slot-in!”
The Air Hockey by itself was no threat to Roll, even with the Suikomi affecting her movement; Enzan would have been disappointed if she hadn’t been able to keep track of it. But she was getting pulled toward Blues, who was rushing in to meet her.
“Ice Wave, slot-in!” Roll shot the attack not at Blues, but at the floor beneath him, so that he also had to compensate—and missed with his first swipe. “Now, Earthquake!”
Enough was enough. Silently, Enzan sent in an Area Steal and Z-Saber, then waited as Roll’s summoned Poward crashed into the ground.
At first, neither Operator could see much of what was happening. Then, the smoke particles from the Poward virus’s landing dissipated, and all was silent. Hesitantly, still looking around, Roll ventured, “Did we—“
A single swipe from the Z-Saber probably would’ve sufficed to end the fight. But Blues added a second, overhead slash for good measure to make sure his and Enzan’s point was made. Data leaking from both her chest and her severed left arm, Roll logged out, screaming in pain.
“Roll,” Meiru said to her PET; even under the circumstances, her Navi mattered the most. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, Meiru-chan,” came Roll’s voice, weak but bearing no ill will. “We did a lot better than we would’ve even six months ago, didn’t we?”
“That’s true,” Enzan allowed.
Meiru was silent for a moment. “Then why did you tell me to stay behind,” she asked quietly.
“Because Blues and I could handle it,” Enzan said. “Kato only wanted someone to reassure him, and you did just that.”
“Roll can sense things using her antennae—sounds, and other frequencies,” Meiru countered, her voice roughening. “And I think you already know that. If there really was something wrong, we would’ve been able to help detect it,” she said, then ventured for the true opening jab: “Maybe… maybe something really was odd, and we could’ve found something Blues couldn’t!”
“And then what?” Enzan countered. “Would Roll have been able to handle herself? Truly? Or would she have become a liability again?”
Meiru visibly flinched, but didn’t back down. “We’re not the same as we were before. Even you admitted it.”
“Maybe not, but you’re still nowhere near where you think you are,” Enzan countered, as methodically as if he was shooting down Netto. He was no longer able to stop himself, even though part of him never, ever wanted to talk to Meiru like this. “You stop fighting too early. You’re still caught unprepared too easily. Your ideas are just that—ideas. You’re too unpracticed to know how t—“
“Then show me!” Meiru was crying, but not from pain or despair—from sheer rage. “If you’ve got all this critique for me, show me! Show me how you and Blues train, show us how to make this work!”
Coldly, Enzan told her, “You don’t have to. You’re fine as you are. I’m going to be the one doing the serious fighting.”
“No!” Meiru yelled. “I am your partner! I can’t replace Netto, and Roll can’t replace Rockman. But our power is special, too, and I’m not going to let you fight alone, either! I am going to keep up with you, whether you like it or not! Whether you help me or not!”
Enzan could tell from both her eyes and her rhetoric that she knew exactly what he’d been trying to do the other morning. Any further arguments he could make were pointless in the face of it.
She, too, had made that realization that there would be no miracles coming to save them.
“Try to push me away all you want and I’ll come back,” Meiru furiously continued. “Tell me I’m hopeless every single day and I’ll keep trying! Until you accept me as your partner, I’ll never give up!”
“Show us what we should be doing,” Roll asked; softly, weakened by the seriousness of the damage she’d taken, but no less determined. “Train us. Please.”
Enzan regarded Meiru in silence, in a way he knew was intimidating even to people thrice his age; she didn’t so much as shiver. “I won’t go any easier on you just because you’re a girl.”
“Good,” Meiru said. “Nobody else we face is going to.”
“Roll, you and Blues will spar every afternoon. Mornings, too, when it’s possible. You can’t hide behind your Operator’s tricks forever.”
“Yes, sir!” answered Roll with no hesitation.
Despite the charged atmosphere, Enzan couldn’t help a small grin. “I really can’t make you go away, can I?” he laughed softly. “How annoying.” Since there was no helping it, he asked, “What’s your training simulator at home like?”
Finally, Meiru was caught off-guard. “We… don’t have one?”
“Aren’t decent training simulators, like, one and a half million zenny?!” Roll asked, sounding faintly horrified. “Meiru-chan, that’s double our entire monthly allowance!”
“You don’t need to remind me,” Meiru said, her resolve finally seeming to waver. “If I eat instant ramen for two months, maybe… but I don’t wanna…”
“I can spot you for it,” Enzan said before Meiru could become discouraged over something that was honestly trivial for him.
It obviously wasn’t for her, though, because both Operator and Navi’s faces lit up. “Yay!” cheered Roll.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” cheered Meiru, suddenly slamming into Enzan as a somewhat sticky and tear-streaked weight.
He reflexively stiffened against the attack, unsure of what to do. “Uh…”
Just as abruptly, Meiru let go. “Oh, gosh, sorry!”
Enzan took a moment to recompose himself. “Let’s give Blues and Roll a hand repairing. We can use one of the terminals in the empty offices.”
“Right! Of course!”