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“The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears”
-Ellen Goodman
He really should have left more space on the PET for health chips. –Now he said that, when there was blood dripping down his neck- Certainly he was paying for it. Really, his battle ‘plan’ probably could have done without that fourth cornshot. A recovery100 probably –there was no probably, it was just fact- would’ve been better.
‘Still no answer from Meijin-san or Manabe-san’ softly added Rock as the stars began to fade. ‘Ashcat says that Rangiku-san has fallen out of crossfusion, but her wounds aren’t serious. Toushiro-san and Sunow are still together, but they don’t know where they are’
“I don’t know where I am either!” He hissed back.
“Oh child!” It was sickeningly funny how quickly Netto’s grimace of annoyance could flip to one of such anger. –Rock saw no reason to point out any inkling of fear- Whatever the feeling, it didn’t matter now. They’d been found.
‘I’m afraid that he knows’
However, Netto somehow doubted that this revelation would save him from his English teacher’s wrath when he showed up the next day with only a scant fifty words instead of the instructed five hundred. Yeah, the assignment had been given to him a week ago. He knew that. But the excuse that net-savor work had taken up his weekend was getting rather frayed and he kind of, sort of, maybe owed it to his English professor to turn in his homework on time just this once. He probably owed it to his parents as well, the brunet decided offhandedly.
It wasn’t his fault that the English language officially sucked. Okay, sure. It only had twenty-six characters –letters, chided a voice sounding suspiciously like Rock- but this spelling business? ‘S’ or ‘Z’? ‘C’ or ‘K’? The list could go on. This was, of course, completely missing the fact that he wasn’t exactly the master of written Japanese either. He would learn all his joyo kanji. Eventually. Sometime in the near future. He had a quiz on that this Thursday. He would pass it. With studying.
It was this train of thought that led Netto to realize that there was no sweeter sound than that of his ringing PET.
“I don’t think-” Rockman’s warning was cast to the side as the brunet practically tripped over himself to reach the personal terminal. All the program could manage was a quiet sigh as his application was diverted to a background process to make room for Manabe’s video-feed. Netto didn’t bother with changing the windows to split screen anymore; by now he had figured out that this conversation wouldn’t take long. There’d be a mission. The fight itself would be the same. A program advance, maybe two if the bugger was particular about their hitpoints, and it would all be over. However…the resulting questions that he’d need to answer for procedure’s sake? Yeah. Those would take a while.
“Manabe-san!” The exclamation came as if the brunet had not been expecting her. Hah.
“I’m glad I could reach you, Netto-kun.” It was the same routine. “We’ve got a potential Mega Class in the Wifie hospital district. Can you…?” The keyword, of course, being potential. Every situation had the potential to turn into a Mega Class threat if left untreated for long enough.
“Of course!” Still the same. The navi was just able to pick up the sigh of relief from the coordinator.
“Wonderful. Toshiro-kun and Rangiku-kun have been pre-assigned as your backup; I believe Rockman should receive the details in a moment. We’re counting on you, Netto-kun.” And she was gone. Yeah, they were counting on him alright; counting on him enough that they weren’t giving him a ride. Why hadn’t they called Enzan? At least he had a limo at his beck and call. Some people still had to rely on rollerblades as their main means of transport.
“I wonder if late night calls like this were why Enzan quit. He might have been caught falling asleep during meetings” If Rock’s comment was supposed to remind Netto of his own rather disrespectful sleeping habits, particularly during class, the brunet failed to pick up on it.
Instead, he was suddenly bustling with activity, pulling on clothing over his pajamas, trying and failing to find a pair of matching socks, stuffing a few battlechips into his pocket just in case. Of course, by the time Netto was halfway down the steps he realized that Rockman’s PET was still in his room -“I’m sure you could have beat that navi without me anyway, Netto-kun”- and had to dash back anyway.
“Mama!” More thuds as he half tripped, half ran down the steps. “I’ve got a mission, I’ll be back by eleven!” The brunet cried as he leapt out the door.
“But Netto you’ve got school-!” The door slammed shut, and Haruka found the kitchen just as quiet as it had been a moment before. “-tomorrow…” she sighed and turned back to the dinner dishes. “I really need to talk to Yuuichiro about this. This is just too much work for someone Netto’s age…”
But as usual, only the kitchen appliances heard the mother’s worry.
…Does anyone know how we can send a character list for this section? I think the archive is big enough now…
Post-Edit Note: And now that this has been looked over and beta’d, much thanks to Obssessed4Life who did a very nice beta job on this chapter, and is continuing to beta this story!
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