[oneshot] Journey to the End of the Rainbow

[dreamweavernyx]

Title: Journey to the End of the Rainbow

Author: Luna (dreamweavernyx)

Pairing: Tamamiya

Genre: Fantasy/Sci-fi

Rating: PG

Summary: When his best friend is snatched away from right under his nose, Toshiya embarks on a long and perilious journey to bring him back. However, when he finally finds Yuta, he discovers that something is wrong with him...

Notes: Written for the amazing crazy_otaku911 for je_holiday.

Based off Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen.

Many thanks to hotfruits and crazyfaucet for betareading! ♥

~


Once upon a time, there was a city.

It was a rather isolated city in the north, all tall buildings and cold streets, and right in the center was a tall building which served as both laboratory and residence for a particular scientist.

His name was Yara (not that many knew him), and he spent his days inventing whatever he fancied.

He and the city people co-existed in relative peace - save for the occasional large-scale explosion - until he invented his nanobots. Yara was always alone in his lab, and in an effort to gain the perfect lab assistant he created a set of nanobots, smaller than the head of a pin.

They were designed to latch onto the nape of someone’s neck, pretty much unnoticeable. They would block out all the memories that person contained, turning them into blank slates ready to do Yara’s bidding.

One night, a couple of thieves snuck into Yara’s lab and knocked over the box of nanobots by accident, triggering their activation and sending several tiny drones whirring out into the night.

The next day, two boys were found to have disappeared from their beds. People speculated that it was the work of a serial kidnapper or murderer, and the rumour grew like wildfire and panic spread throughout the city.

Needless to say, families with children (around the same age as the missing ones) began to leave the city in droves, fearing for their safety. Slowly, others began to leave too, until the city became nothing but a ghost city with a single lab standing tall, within which lived Yara and his new found assistants.

The nanobots, however, continued to travel far and wide, and once in a while a young child would be seen walking towards the lab with a blank expression on his face.

This, however, is not a story of Yara and his slowly increasing number of assistants. This is a story of a nanobot, and its journey to the countryside villages far away from the empty city.

This is a story of two boys, a whole lot of luck, and the occasional fish.

“Hey, come back ‘ere!”

Yuta stuck out his tongue at the boys chasing him, and waved the stolen sandwich in his hand.

“Come and get it!” he taunted.

He turned a corner, and a skinny arm reached out and gripped his wrist, pulling him into the dark shadows of an alley. Another hand clapped over his mouth, forcing him to stay silent.

The boys ran right past the alley mouth, completely missing the two outlined shadows within.

“That was dangerous,” scolded a familiar voice, and Yuta relaxed.

“Toshiya.”

“What did you get, then?” asked his best friend, brushing away his straggly bangs from his face. “You know Uncle Tackey told us not to steal anything in broad daylight unless we couldn’t find leftovers to scavenge or it was something really good.”

Yuta brought out the sandwich, tuna mayonnaise filling slightly oozing out since he had squeezed it quite a bit during his escape.

“I had to,” he grumbled. “That boy was going to just throw away the sandwich because he didn’t like tuna! How could I just watch him waste good food like that?”

Tentatively, Toshiya ripped a small piece of bread off and ate it.

“Tastes good,” he said, grinning. “You want to bring some back to Uncle Tackey?”

“You bet!”

Yuta and Toshiya lived in a small village far away from any city. The village itself had no name, and its standard of technology was far less advanced than that of cities and bigger villages. Its inhabitants lived in ignorance of the changing world around them and its technological developments, preferring to lead simple lives.

The village was roughly split into two groups -the rich who could afford their own farms and livestock, and the poor who had no choice but to live by stealing, begging and scavenging.

Yuta and Toshiya lived in the ‘poor district’ of the village in a small straw hut. They were orphans, but had both been picked up by a kind man named Tackey eight years ago, who had let them stay with him.

The poor district, in stark contrast to the rest of the village, did not have any oil lamps lighting the area, and was mainly composed of little straw huts and cloth tents.

Yuta and Toshiya picked their way back to their house, and pushed open the rickety wooden door.

“Uncle Tackey!” Yuta called. “We found a sandwich today!”

Tackey was a young man with bright eyes, though at the current moment his eyes were rather lifeless due to a cold he had caught a week prior.

He smiled when he saw them, and Toshiya walked up to his bedside.

“Did Uncle Tsubasa manage to get you medicine?”

Tsubasa was Tackey’s close friend who worked at an apothecary in the richer district of the village. He was just an assistant, but his position allowed him to sneak small quantities of medicinal herbs and concoctions out whenever he needed to.

“He got me some,” Tackey told them, gesturing to a small cup that sat by his bedside.

Toshiya grinned.

“Good.”

Another day of snooping around the grocery store garbage had yielded a small packet of animal crackers, slightly past their expiry date.

“Biscuits!” Toshiya cheered, picking up the packet and ripping it open to take a closer look at its contents. “Yuta, this is great!”

“Is it safe to eat?”

Toshiya peered inside again, and sniffed a cracker closely.

“There’s no mold or anything,” he said cheerily. “Should be fine.”

Bringing their precious find to a small wall that separated the poor district from the rest of the village, they sat on it and swung their legs while crunching away at the crackers slowly.

“You remind me of fish,” Toshiya said suddenly, holding up a fish-shaped cracker and grinning.

“What?”

Sticking out his tongue, Toshiya laughed at Yuta’s look of horror.

“Well, fish is nice. And so are you~”

“I’m not a fish, come on!”

Scowling, Yuta threw an elephant-shaped cracker straight at Toshiya’s face. Toshiya dodged, grinning all the while.

“You missed~!”

Yuta huffed, chewing on another cracker grumpily.

A week later, Yuta and Toshiya were out searching through the bins of food waste behind the village grocery store.

“There’s a mosquito,” Yuta whined, swatting at something black flying around.

“Ignore it,” Toshiya mumbled, busy stuffing a couple of slightly bruised apples into a tattered canvas bag he carried.

Grumbling, Yuta continued to swat the black thing as he followed Toshiya back.

It was stormy that night, although around the early morning the rain stopped to give way to a wonderfully crisp, fresh morning air.

Around five in the morning (according to the clock Tsubasa had brought back for them), Toshiya was woken by Yuta rustling the blankets of their shared makeshift futon.

“…Wha?” he asked, words slightly slurred.

“Can’t sleep,” mumbled Yuta, rubbing his eyes. “M’go outside for some fresh air.”

Satisfied with that explanation, Toshiya waved him off, before promptly going back to sleep - five in the morning was not a nice time to be awake.

If he had been awake he would have heard a startled yelp coming from outside the hut, but everybody within was fast asleep.

Yuta never came back.

“Uncle Tackey? Have you seen Yuta anywhere?”

“Wasn’t he sleeping next to you?” Tackey asked curiously. Miserably, Toshiya shook his head.

“He went out really early to get fresh air. After that he never came back.”

Frowning, Tackey followed Toshiya outside the house, and they saw a dent in the ground.

“…I could fit into that,” Toshiya said in a small voice. “Does that mean Yuta was here?”

Tackey ran a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know, Toshiya,” he murmured. “I don’t know.”

Nobody in the area had known where Yuta had gone - it had been early morning, after all - but near the outskirts of the village Toshiya had somehow chanced upon a set of fading footprints.

“I think Yuta might have left,” Toshiya mumbled, poking at the footprints with his toe. “Uncle Tackey, may I go look for him?”

Tackey furrowed his brows.

“Toshiya, we have no idea where Yuta may have gone,” he reminded, but Toshiya shook his head.

“I…I don’t know how to explain it, but somehow I have this feeling that I kind of know where he might have gone. A vague idea.”

There was a pause, before Tackey wilted slightly with a soft sigh.

“If you’re so determined, there’s nothing I can do, is there? Are you sure about this, Toshiya? You have no idea what dangers lie out there.”

“Yuta’s my best friend,” Toshiya shot back petulantly.

Exhaling slowly, Tackey closed his eyes for a while, thinking.

“Alright,” he conceded. “Don’t leave yet, though.”

Ten minutes later, Tackey had located a waterskin Tsubasa had given him a couple of years ago, as well as a small bag filled with some day-old bread and several biscuits he had managed to find.

“This is all I can do for you,” he told Toshiya sadly. “I fall sick easily so I cannot go with you, but at least take these - they should sustain you for a while. I have heard stories about people who live in isolated houses instead of villages, so if you come across them you can try and ask for food, water, and directions.”

Nodding solemnly, Toshiya strapped the waterskin around his waist and slung the bag of edibles across his chest.

“You just wait,” he said confidently. “I’ll bring Yuta back soon, I promise!”

Tackey smiled softly, and reached out to pat Toshiya’s straggly brown hair.

“I’ll be waiting.”

Toshiya beamed back, before turning and taking the first steps out of the village he had ever taken in his entire life.

Tackey stood at the edge of the village, watching Toshiya worriedly until the small black silhouette faded beyond the horizon.

Toshiya walked.

The sun had heated the path so it was uncomfortably warm, but years of running barefoot had given Toshiya’s feet a protective layer of callused skin so he didn’t feel much heat.

He tried his best to ration his supplies, and resorted to picking random little fruits off the occasional tree to save his water and edibles. Somehow, he was always lucky enough to be able to pick the more edible fruits, and once he managed to eat a couple of mushrooms without getting poisoned.

Still, eventually even the final crumbs from the stale bread had been eaten, and the inside of his waterskin was extremely dry. He had been walking from dawn to dusk every day, and even though he wasn’t sure of how much time had passed, his aching feet told him that he was in dire need of some rest.

“Where are all the isolated houses Uncle Tackey mentioned?” he whined to the cloudless sky.

As expected, no answer came, but miraculously, as he rounded the next bend in the dirt road he saw, silhouetted against the horizon, the unmistakable shadow of a tiny cottage.

As dusk fell, he reached the cottage, which was a pleasant little wooden cabin with a straw roof.

“Hello?” he called tentatively, knocking on the wooden door. “I’m really sorry to trouble you, but can I stay for the night?”

There was silence, and just as Toshiya was about to give up and turn away the door was yanked open, and a young boy with a head of wild curls peeked out.

“You need a place to stay the night?” he asked curiously, before a frown crossed his face as he took in Toshiya’s bedraggled appearance.

“Yes, you do,” he answered his own question. “Come in! My name’s Kento. I live alone but there’s a sofa bed so you can sleep there. What’s your name?”

Toshiya blinked, stunned into silence. By the time he had gathered his wits about him to answer Kento’s question, he was already sitting on a soft sofa with his bags all taken off him.

“I- My name’s Toshiya,” he mumbled dazedly. “I’m looking for my friend. Have you seen a boy, about my height, with lightish brown hair?”

Kento paused in the middle of ladling out some soup, and thought for a while.

“I might have,” he said eventually. “A few days ago. Don’t you go looking for your friend now though, rest up and you can start your search in the morning.”

A bowl of warm pumpkin soup was pressed into his hands, and Toshiya stared at the bright orange liquid dumbly.

Kento laughed.

“It’s safe to drink,” he grinned. “You’ve never had pumpkin soup before?”

Shaking his head mutely, Toshiya began to sip at the soup. As he drank, a strange calmness settled over his mind.

“Your bed’s just here,” Kento told him when he was done. “I have a bathing tub as well, use that if you wish.”

Two hours later, the fire in the fireplace had been blown out, and sleep fell upon the little cottage.

Morning dawned, and Toshiya stumbled off his sofa bed to find Kento already preparing breakfast.

“Good morning!” he said cheerily. “Sleep well?”

Toshiya nodded, and Kento smiled.

“Today’s going to be a scorching hot day, hot even for summer,” he told Toshiya. “You’d probably get heatstroke or something if you went walking today. Would you like to stay here for one more night?”

Toshiya had a feeling that there was something important he was supposed to be doing, but his mind had somehow gone fuzzy and he couldn’t remember what it was.

“I’ll stay,” he told Kento, deciding that there was nothing important after all.

An extra day turned into a week, two weeks, a month, two months.

Every day, Kento would wait until he was sure Toshiya wasn’t aware, and then dripped a couple of drops of a clear liquid into every food item on Toshiya’s plate. It kept Toshiya’s mind fuzzy, and though he felt bad for doing it he knew the longer Toshiya’s mind stayed fuzzy the longer he would stay in the cottage.

Kento had lived alone in the cottage for the longest time, and when the chance to have a housemate came, he was so desperate for constant company that he had resorted to drugging Toshiya. He knew that eventually Toshiya’s body would build up immunity against the drug, but until then he would keep on adding it, as long as he didn’t have to spend his days alone.

Toshiya never knew, never suspected anything.

One day, Kento had brought back a couple of fish for dinner that he had caught in a nearby pond. After placing them on the counter, he decided to go look for mushrooms, and left the cottage, leaving Toshiya alone in it.

On his way to the living room, Toshiya caught sight of the fish in the kitchen. Something about the fish seemed to draw his attention, and unbidden he wandered into the kitchen.

“Fish,” he said to himself softly. “Fish.”

Suddenly, the face of a cheerful boy with light brown hair appeared in his mind.

“Fish,” he murmured again. “Yuta.”

The fuzziness that had stayed in his mind slowly began to clear up.

“Yuta,” he said aloud. “I need to find Yuta. Why am I still here?”

Not sure how Kento would react, he quickly located his bags, filled his waterskins, and slipped some food into his food pouch. Before Kento returned, Toshiya slipped out the back door, and began his long trek again.

The days had grown cooler, and Toshiya hurried, for he knew he had lost time inside the cottage - summer was over, and autumn was approaching.

A week and a half or so later, Toshiya came across a small village, so small it was comprised of only several small houses. A couple of small children were playing outside one of the houses, and Toshiya called to them.

“Excuse me, but have you seen a boy about my height with light brown hair? He’s my friend, and I’ve been trying to look for him.”

The boy with longer hair cocked his head to think.

“I think there was a boy with light brown hair living in the carpenter’s house. Mister Koyama said there was someone like that living there now with the carpenter’s brother.”

Toshiya beamed gratefully.

“Do you know how to get there?”

The boy shook his head.

“Mister Koyama might though. He lives in the hut down yonder with Mister Kato. I’ll take you there.”

‘Mister Koyama’ turned out to be a very kind-looking man with glasses, who lived in a wooden house with his cat and his best friend (who was strangely allergic to cats).

“There is a boy with light brown hair living at the carpenter’s house,” he said when the little boy had repeated Toshiya’s query to him. “He’s got quite an awful perm though, I must say. Smiles a lot and has a strange penchant for tuna sandwiches.”

Toshiya frowned.

“That does sound like Yuta, somewhat,” he mused.

“The carpenter told me that boy showed up on their doorstep in tattered clothes with his hair all straggly. The carpenter’s younger brother has taken quite a liking to him.”

Nodding along, Toshiya absently rubbed the ears of Mister Koyama’s cat, which was now sitting in his lap.

“I think he might be Yuta,” he murmured. “Oh dear, how did he end up this far away from home? I hope he didn’t follow a stray cat or something there…”

A thought struck him then, and he turned to Mister Koyama.

“Can you take me to the carpenter’s house? I’ve come all this way to find Yuta, you see.”

Mister Koyama shook his head.

“I’ve got to stay here,” he said apologetically. “If not Nyanta might end up in Shige’s room and then he’ll be stuck in bed for two weeks with such a terrible leaky nose again. I think Shige can bring you there though.”

Mister Kato looked up from where he had been reading newspapers, and blinked.

“…Eh?”

“The carpenter’s house,” Mister Koyama repeated. “Can you bring this boy there?”

“Sure,” responded Mister Kato. “What, now?”

They both glanced at Toshiya, and Mister Koyama immediately shook his head.

“We’ll let the boy rest first. You can go over tonight, when the carpenter’s finished with his work for the day.”

Night fell soon enough. With some bread rolls given to him by Mister Koyama in his little bag and his waterskin filled up again, Toshiya walked quietly behind Mister Kato as they made their way to the nearby carpenter’s house by lamplight.

The carpenter nodded to them as they walked in.

“Here again, Kato? That Koyama just came yesterday.”

“I’m here to see your brother’s friend, Tanaka,” Mister Kato countered mildly.

The carpenter shrugged.

“He’s more of my assistant Kitayama’s friend,” he said dryly. “He’s much older than Juri.”

They were pointed to the living room anyway, and when Toshiya peeked in he saw a head of light brown curls belonging to a boy about Yuta’s size, helping a smaller boy set up his wooden train tracks.

“Yuta!” Toshiya gasped despite himself, and the boy turned around.

In that instant, it was clear to Toshiya that he only looked like Yuta on a bad hair day from the back - the face shape was completely different, and now he looked more like a ruffled lion than anything else.

“…My name’s Taisuke,” he told Toshiya hesitantly, at the same moment that the younger boy stood up and ran over to Mister Kato.

“What’re you doing here?”

Mister Kato winced.

“Juri, stop poking my nose! I’m here because this boy’s looking for his lost friend, who he mistook for Taisuke, alright?”

The younger boy - Juri - ceased in his poking to peer at Toshiya curiously.

“Your friend is lost?” he asked, and Toshiya nodded mutely.

“He’s about my height with light brown hair, and tends to space out a lot,” he said. “Have you seen him?”

“Sounds a lot like Mitsu,” Taisuke snorted. “Spacey with brown hair.”

Rolling his eyes, Juri ignored the older boy.

“You can spend the night here,” he offered. “I’m sure my brother won’t mind. You can continue your search tomorrow.”

He bid goodbye the next day to the carpenter and the other people living there, as well as Mister Kato who had decided to stay overnight.

After learning that he had walked all the way, the carpenter’s assistant Kitayama had insisted that Toshiya take his moped - something which stood out greatly in the rural area.

“I got it when I was passing through a city a long time back,” he explained. “I don’t need it that much anymore, and it will make travelling a lot easier for you.”

Kitayama had given him a quick crash course on how to operate the moped, which was surprisingly simple despite all the buttons it had on the dashboard. Now, he was moving along at a much faster pace than before.

The little strange sense within, that gave him a vague idea of where Yuta might be, gradually grew stronger. As he came to a fork in the road, he took a leap of faith, veering off to the path on the right, which led to a dark forest.

The forest creeped Toshiya out a little with its shifting shadows, and several times he thought he heard noises in the bushes. Ignoring them, he pressed on, hoping the end to the forest was in sight.

A slight whistle, and a sharp dagger flew past him and buried itself deep in a tree trunk.

“You’re lucky, kid,” a rough voice floated out from behind the trees. “The great Goseki rarely misses his target.”

Frightened, Toshiya stopped the moped.

“Wh-who’s there?”

A boy stepped out of the shadows twirling another dagger in his hands.

“He’s riding one of those mechanical things from the city!” he crowed. “He must be one of those rich fellows! I say we kill him.”

He raised his dagger, ready to throw it again, when a brown blur tackled him to the ground and bit his ear.

“Ow!” he shrieked. “Damn in, Hasshi, that hurt!”

The boy who had bit the dagger-boy’s ear rolled his eyes.

“That kid is my new friend now,” he said grumpily. “Don’t you dare touch him. Tottsu isn’t allowed to either, even if I love him a lot.”

With his piece said, he got onto the back of the moped and urged Toshiya to get moving.

“I’ll give you directions,” he said. “If you try to run away I’ll kill you.”

After what seemed like forever manoeuvring through the forest, they finally reached what seemed like a small castle.

“It’s our robbers’ castle,” his guide said cheerily. “Isn’t it cool? We’re the Ebi Bandits!”

He was led into the interior, which was a large hall with a couple of older boys lazing around watching a boiling pot. His guide had a little corner lined with carpets, where a sulky little boy was sitting.

“I’m Hasshi, by the way,” his guide said as they sat down. “This grumpypants is Nika-tan, we found him and he’s my pet now. It’s really fun to tickle his armpits, you know? He makes funny faces.”

‘Nika-tan’ ignored them, brushing his black hair away from his face. Shrugging, Hasshi turned back to Toshiya.

“So! Tell me what you were doing in the middle of the forest.”

Settling down on the smelly carpet, Toshiya began his story. He told Hasshi about Yuta and his tuna sandwiches, about Kento’s curious house, and then about the carpenter and the moped. When he was done, Hasshi had somehow fallen asleep with his head leaning against the wall.

“I might have seen your friend,” the black-haired boy whispered to him. “I saw someone about your size with really dirty brown hair wandering towards the city with a blank look on his face.”

“Really?” Toshiya squeaked loudly, then flinched as Hasshi groaned in his sleep and flung out an arm that happened to hit Toshiya’s shoulder hard.

“I mean, really?” he repeated in a softer voice, and the other boy nodded gravely.

“I called out to him to ask why he wasn’t wearing shoes, but he didn’t answer me. He had this really blank look like he didn’t know what he was doing. Kinda like a robot, you know?”

Toshiya blinked.

“What’s a…robot?”

‘Nika-tan’ shot him a look of confusion, as if he had expected everyone to know that term.

“It’s kinda like a….doll. That moves.”

“…I see.”

Hasshi moved again in his sleep, and the conversation got cut short as Toshiya tried to pry Hasshi’s arm off from where it was curled around his neck.

“You guys talk really loudly,” Hasshi whined when he had woken up. “I could hear everything.”

“Everything?”

Hasshi nodded, casting a furtive glance to make sure the rest of the bandits were sleeping or preoccupied.

“Nika-tan, you know how to find his friend?”

‘Nika-tan’ nodded with a slight indignant look on his face.

“I was originally from the city, of course I know how to get there!”

Heaving a sigh, Hasshi reached over to ruffle the smaller boy’s hair.

“I’ll let you go,” he decided. “It would’ve been fun to tickle you more, but make sure you show him the way properly, okay? Help him find his friend.”

He then turned to Toshiya.

“I’ll let you have your mechanical thing back,” he said. “Here, take some bread and fish. You better not die of hunger on your way there.”

Two loaves of bread and small, dried fish were pushed into Toshiya’s hands, but Hasshi had walked ahead before Toshiya could murmur his thanks. Hasshi saw them to the front of the castle, and then as the two boys got on and began to drive away, he called out a final ‘Good luck!’.

The moped lent them speed, and very soon when Toshiya turned to look back, the robbers’ castle was no more than a little bump in the distance.

When they were a good distance away from the castle, and had in fact left the forest, the black-haired boy finally spoke.

“My name’s Nikaido, by the way,” he said as he steered the moped, Toshiya clinging to him. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me by that horrible nickname.”

Toshiya nodded, too terrified by the speed at which Nikaido was driving to properly say anything. He had never driven the moped at a particularly high speed, but Nikaido, knowing that the food supplies would not last very long, had taken it upon himself to head towards the city at a breakneck speed.

The moped would somehow recharge itself overnight - Nikaido mumbled something about ‘generators’ and ‘solar panels’ and Toshiya, not really comprehending anything, stopped trying to ask - while the two of them tried to ration the food and get some sleep.

However, even with Toshiya’s years of experience in rationing scarce food supplies and their high-speed travelling every day, they eventually ran out of food with not a single house anywhere in sight on the horizon.

The days had begun to turn colder, and both boys hoped they would be able to find shelter soon - they did not have any coats to protect against winter cold.

On the second day with no food, they had tried eating the first flakes of snow that had begun to fall at night. With their hunger slightly sated, they began their journey again.

As evening fell, they finally spotted a small house in the distance.

Nikaido rapped on the door, too tired and hungry to worry about whether the person inside the house would even let them in. It was yanked open shortly, and a young man poked his head out.

At first glance, Toshiya thought he looked the same age as the carpenter’s assistant Kitayama, but with a more worried look etched on his face.

“Well,” he said after they had stared at him for a while. “What are you waiting for? Come in, don’t freeze in the cold.”

The house was warm with several heating lamps running on full throttle. The young man bustled around, fetching them some warm soup and bread to eat.

“What are the two of you doing out in the snow with no winter coats?” he asked, a slight tone of disapproval in his voice.

Nikaido shot a side glance at Toshiya, who was too busy drinking the soup and trying to warm his toes to take much notice. He shook his head with a sigh, and related what he knew of Toshiya’s story to the young man. When he had finished, the young man nodded slowly.

“I have heard of similar happenings,” he began slowly as Toshiya turned to join the conversation. “Young boys leaving suddenly to go to the city, blank looks on their faces as if they do not know what they are doing. From bits and pieces I have heard these few years, I think it must be some sort of small device planted somewhere on their body, that overrides their memories and turns them into robots.”

“A robot,” Toshiya cut in suddenly. “Like a moving doll, right?”

The young man nodded.

“When you find your friend, if you are able to locate the device and remove it, I think he should be able to turn back to normal.”

Toshiya looked noticeably more excited at this, and turned back to his bread with much gusto. Nikaido, on the other hand, was more worried.

“I used to be from the city,” he said quietly. “I heard that we all had to be evacuated because a scientist had gone mad with his inventions and it wasn’t safe for us anymore. What if he encounters that scientist’s inventions? Can you give him something to help him along, like one of those army stun guns or something?”

The young man snorted.

“A stun gun? That would not be of much use. Besides, what can I give your friend that he does not already have? I may not have been around him for long, but to me it is quite obvious that he has an extraordinary amount of luck, does he not? From what you tell me, it seems that he has been able to avoid many dangers by the skin of his teeth. If he fails to save his friend even with that then his friend is beyond our help.”

Nikaido shot another worried glance at Toshiya.

“If you say so.”

In the morning, the young man - Wataru was apparently his name, which he only remembered to tell them then - gave the pair of them some spare coats of his that hung down way past their knees.

“If you drive your moped at top speed, you will reach the outskirts of the city in an hour. You will see a signpost with arrows pointing in six directions. Leave your friend there and then hurry back - his good luck does not extend to you and you may very well be in danger,” Wataru told Nikaido, who frowned but nodded reluctantly.

Turning to Toshiya, he adjusted the collar of the coat and ruffled his hair.

“Good luck,” he said sincerely, and Toshiya nodded back solemnly.

He helped Toshiya onto the moped, and then Nikaido sped away towards the distant city in a flurry of snow.

Nikaido dropped him off by the signpost as instructed.

“Good luck,” he whispered, clapping Toshiya on the shoulder. “I wish I could go with you but it’s too dangerous for me.”

Toshiya smiled.

“It’s okay,” he replied cheerily. “I’ll be back out soon.”

As he turned and began to walk into the city outskirts, Nikaido bit his lip and sped away on the moped.

The walk towards the city center was quiet, and as his tattered shoes dragged through the slowly gathering snow, Toshiya slightly regretted not asking Wataru to lend him a newer pair of shoes. He had been through worse, but it would be nice not to have to feel the cold and wet seep in and affect his toes, when he was supposed to be looking for Yuta.

He had heard Wataru briefly mention something about a ‘scientist’ who might have had something to do with Yuta’s disappearance, but he did not have a very clear idea of where he might find one in the silent concrete-and-metal city.

As he advanced towards the city center, the empty buildings around him gradually got taller and taller until he came right to the middle of the city, where an extremely tall building stood. He saw light coming from some of the windows.

Finally, there seems to be someone around, he thought to himself. I’ll go in and ask if they’ve seen a ‘scientist’ anywhere.

There had, of course, been automated defence mechanisms on standby, but somehow Toshiya managed to evade them. The one time a mechanised arm bearing spikes had come swinging at him, he had leapt backwards in surprise - for he had never seen such a thing before - and had somehow hit the off switch as his head smacked against the wall.

The corridors were eerily quiet, though he would never know that it was because the inhabitant of the place - Yara, the scientist whose inventions had started all this in the first place - had gone out on a search for more supplies for his most recent invention, taking with him most of his assistants.

Toshiya was about to give up when he came across a room where a faint but regular thunk sound could be heard. Curiosity got the better of him, and he peeked in to see what the source of the noise might be.

In the middle of the room, standing in front of a large electronic screen, was a boy with a familiar head of unruly brown hair.

Several hours prior, just as Yara was about to leave his laboratory, he had assigned his newest assistant to a solo task.

“This is a screen made out of little LED lights arranged in a hundred-by-hundred square. Every time you press that button, each of the lights will flash through a number of colours and then randomly stop. If you can manage to get the lights to stop on such a pattern whereby you form a large pink heart on a blue background with yellow polka-dots, I’ll give you the freedom to wander about wherever you wish.”

He had failed to mention the extreme improbability of this happening, but he knew it would probably occupy his assistant while he was out gathering supplies.

Showing his assistant which buttons to press to activate the lights’ colour change, he left.

Now, Toshiya watched curiously as a host of various colours flashed across the screen. He had never seen such technology before, and spent a good five minutes gawking at the colours before remembering what he had come for.

“Yuta!” he gasped, running into the room and flinging himself at his best friend.

The nanobot, however, was still active and had blocked Yuta’s memories, and as such Yuta’s eyes did not show even a spark of recognition when he turned to regard the person clinging onto his neck for dear life.

Seeing Yuta’s lack of response, Toshiya scowled.

I didn’t come all this way to find that he doesn’t seem to know me! he whined internally.

“Don’t you remember me, Yuta?” he asked aloud, shaking his friend. “I’m Toshiya! Your best friend! We used to steal sandwiches and thrown-out fruit together, remember?”

Yuta didn’t seem to remember anything, and only reached out to press the button again. Colours flashed as Toshiya wrinkled his nose, grabbing his friend by the shoulders and shaking him.

“Fish!” he wailed, slightly desperate now - he didn’t want to go back empty-handed, so he would do all it took to get Yuta back to his senses. “Fish! Tuna sandwiches! Remember?”

In all his agitation, Toshiya just happened to accidentally hit the side of Yuta’s neck. Unseen by either of them, a tiny metal sphere tumbled out and rolled around on the floor, only to be crushed a moment later when Yuta took a step backwards.

“T-toshiya…?”

Toshiya’s face broke out into as wide a grin as he could manage.

“I’ve been looking for you!” he cried, launching himself at Yuta in a hug. “Let’s go home.”

Yuta bit his lip, and looked at the screen.

“I vaguely remember having to make some design on this thing, but I don’t remember which…”

He trailed off, and Toshiya frowned.

“You just press a button, right? It can’t be that hard.”

Reaching out, he pressed the button, and without waiting for the colours to settle he had begun to drag Yuta out of the room, chattering all the way.

Behind them, when the colours finally settled, they showed the exact pattern that Yara had thought nearly impossible to create.

They ran down the corridors, only to skid to a stop when they noticed a set of silhouettes approaching.

“Who’s that?” Toshiya whispered, and Yuta shrugged.

“I think he’s the guy that owns this place,” he whispered back.

It was indeed the scientist Yara, back early from his expedition. Behind him swarmed his assistants, each and every one with a blank look on their face that Toshiya remembered having seen on Yuta a short while ago.

“Boy, what are you doing in my lab with my assistant?”

Toshiya scrunched up his nose.

“He’s not your assistant! He’s my friend, and I’m bringing him home with me!”

Shaking his head slowly, Yara pulled out a slim remote control from his coat pocket that he used to give mass orders to all the nanobot-controlled assistants.

“Get him,” he ordered, pressing a button, and all the assistants behind Yara slowly began to lumber towards Toshiya and Yuta.

Toshiya stared at them in shock before Yuta regained his senses.

“Run!” Yuta screeched, gripping Toshiya’s wrist and trying to make a break for it.

They ran back the way they came, only to find themselves turning into a control room by mistake. Before they could run out again, however, the assistants had caught up, and blocked the doorway.

Yuta was shaking a little out of fear, but when he turned his head to glance at Toshiya he realised his friend had turned to gaze at the control panel.

“...Toshiya?” he asked cautiously. “What exactly are you doing?”

His friend was staring fixedly at a red button near the top right corner, and Yuta paled. The label read Mass-destruct, but even though neither Yuta nor Toshiya could read Yuta still felt that the button looked extremely dangerous.

“Don’t press that,” he said in a warning tone. “We don’t know what it does. Besides, those creepy guys are closing in, now is not the time to be staring at buttons!”

Toshiya glanced up at the approaching assistants, then pouted.

“My instinct tells me that that red button is a good button to press,” he argued.

Just at that moment, Yara had caught up with his assistants, and shouldered his way into the room. Seeing Toshiya reaching for the red button on his control panel, he froze.

“Don’t touch that button!” he yelled, pushing past his assistants to try and stop Toshiya.

Before he could reach Toshiya, however, the boy had already pressed the button.

Neither Toshiya nor Yuta had known what the button did, but soon enough it became clear.

A little puff of smoke came from the neck area of each assistant, and suddenly the glazed look on each of their faces fell away.

“Where are we?”

Yara groaned in despair as his assistants began to mill around confusedly.

“That guy brought you here!” Toshiya yelled, pointing at Yara and catching their attention.

Suddenly, almost as one, they turned to Yara and began to bombard him with questions. Yuta seized the chance and hightailed it out of the room in the confusion, dragging Toshiya along behind him.

They ran and ran and ran, out of the building and down the streets and towards the outskirts of the city.

A little while away from the city, Toshiya found an abandoned moped that still seemed to work.

“Get on,” he told Yuta. “I think I still remember how to work this thing, and I don’t think we want to walk all the way back.”

Pressing a few buttons, he was delighted to find that it operated just like the other one he had used previously. When Yuta had gotten up apprehensively behind him, they sped off, Yuta clinging to his waist for dear life.

Unfortuately, unlike the previous moped, this one ran on petrol and not on solar energy. This meant that it would not automatically recharge itself. Toshiya discovered this when one day the moped sputtered and died, and would not move any further.

“It died,” he told Yuta pitifully, glancing at it.

Yuta sighed, taking Toshiya’s hand.

“Let’s walk. You remember the way, right?”

The village was pretty much the same as when they had left.

“Uncle Tackey!” Toshiya yelled the moment he stepped within their hut. “We’re home!”

It felt good to be back in familiar surroundings, with none of the strange technology he had seen on his journey.

Tackey looked up, smiling, and offered them some dried fish.

“Tsubasa brought some this morning,” he explained. “Eat up, then tell me all about your journey.”

Settling around Tackey’s chair, Toshiya and Yuta began to nibble away at the fish.

“Well,” Toshiya began after a long while of chewing. “It’s going to be a long story…”

“Hey! Come back ‘ere!”

Toshiya stuck his tongue out at the angry greengrocer chasing him. In his hands were several overripe tomatoes that he had nicked when he noticed that the older man was going to throw them away.

“You wish!” he laughed, and ducked into an alley.

“That was dangerous,” Yuta’s voice drifted towards him from the shadows, as the greengrocer blindly ran past the alley mouth.

Toshiya shrugged, holding out some of the tomatoes for Yuta to take.

“We’ll feast on fish and tomatoes tonight.”

Yuta grinned.

“Awesome!”

Life can’t get any better, Toshiya thought to himself as he followed Yuta home.

fin.