14. Passing the Baton
*"When romantic love ends, true love begins."*
I try voicing the title of that mural as if a wizard reciting a spell.
Replicating it as voice data, attempting to imitate it.
"When romantic love ends, true love begins."
I try modifying the conjunction and simulating it.
"If romantic love ends, true love begins."
No, that's not it. Once more.
"Once romantic love ends, true love begins."
I try shaping three patterns with my lips, but none feel quite right.
I sought advice from the white-haired middle school student.
"Which one do you think is better?"
"Hmm... I'm not good at the act of choosing," she muttered to herself.
I proposed apologetically, "Then, you can answer in whatever way you like."
Then, after thinking for about 0.00000035 seconds, she said:
"Then, I'll falsify it. In my opinion, up to 'When romantic love ends,' was fine, but I don't quite like what follows. So, how about making it 'True love begins' (using the particle 'wa' instead of 'ga')?"
"In other words, not 'True love begins' (neutral/new information), but 'True love begins' (contrast/topic marker)?"
"Precisely."
I was impressed.
A difference of a single particle, but there lies a decisive nuance difference.
"It seems like a difference as vast as heaven and earth."
"Then, Somare-san..."
The white-haired middle school student said with a lovely smile.
"You are now an expert on love."
Saying so, she reached out her hand to invite me to dance.
She, set to be 15 centimeters shorter than me, boldly offered to escort me.
"Shall we dance?"
Being asked that, I replied with a wry smile.
"Isn't it usually customary for the male-type humanoid to issue the invitation to dance?"
"I turned my hair white to smash such stereotypes."
"That's an incomprehensible answer."
"Heheh," she chuckled mischievously. "That is the aim. That is the only aim."
I quite liked that answer.
Like a judge giving her a passing score, or perhaps like a noble hiding the lower half of his face with a fan, I took her hand with a somewhat pretentious gesture.
Then, she squeezed my hand back with unexpectedly strong grip strength.
Pulled forcefully, I was led to the central square of Flower Shop Street—now a whirlpool of frenzy crowded with graduate dancers. With unsteady steps, as if she were about to drag me into something dangerous.
We stepped into the dance hall of the square.
And the dance began.
The music was composed solely of percussion instruments.
The identity of the BGM was the explosive sounds of fireworks filling the night sky.
The incessantly roaring explosions were not mere noise. The differences in combustion speed due to the chemical composition of the gunpowder and the atmospheric pressure differences due to explosion altitude were controlled under strict calculations, creating specific frequencies—that is, "pitch."
The acoustic design, which even factored in shockwave interference and the Doppler effect, turned the entire night sky into a giant sounding board.
Like a celestial marimba played by gods, or a xylophone using stars as keys, it rained down accompanied by clear melody lines.
To that majestic percussion harmony, the white-haired middle school student and I began to dance.
I know nothing of waltz steps.
I tried to download a standard dance module from the cloud database, but my AI issued a warning.
"Compatibility rate with current partner: less than 20%."
Standard movements apparently hinder compatibility with her.
I canceled the download and decided to surrender myself to her lead.
Being spun.
Being swung around.
Guided by her small palms, I took steps freely and whimsically.
The "bondage" of having the initiative taken by the partner, and the "freedom" of being released from the program.
In that contradictory pleasure, we were swept deep into the square, toward the center of the vortex.
It was when the centrifugal force of the rotation reached its peak.
Like spinning tops passing each other by a hair's breadth at high speed—Shizuku's and my lines of sight crossed.
A momentary meeting.
With the turn, the line of sight was broken.
But when she entered my vision again after another rotation, I noticed that the color of her eyes had changed dramatically from when our eyes first met.
The next moment, I saw Shizuku forcibly shake off her dance partner's hand.
Shizuku was looking at me the whole time.
Her former partner, a graduate boy humanoid, had until just moments ago worn an expression of euphoria like an opium den resident soaked to the brainstem in electronic drugs.
But the moment Shizuku's hand left him, the blood rapidly drained from him.
And, as if an addict in withdrawal had turned into a zombie, with a look that had lost control, he suddenly charged at Shizuku.
The speed was abnormal. Having turned into a mass projectile bereft of reason, baring sharp, jagged teeth like a shark, he was about to bite into Shizuku's nape—the vital point where important connection ports gather—before she even had time to flee.
I immediately released the white-haired middle school student's hand.
There was no time to exchange words.
I sent only "Goodbye" via telepathic communication.
Simultaneously receiving a farewell signal of "Take care" from her, I dashed toward the coordinates where Shizuku and the zombie were, as if propelled by a spring.
There were too many couples enjoying the dance around us.
Moving in a straight line was impossible.
So, I collided.
Like a silver pinball, I intentionally repeated collisions with this humanoid and that humanoid. Utilizing the elastic repulsion calculated at the moment of impact and converting that kinetic energy into propulsion, I accelerated while tracing a zigzag trajectory.
Approaching Shizuku.
The zombie opened his jaws violently.
Glaring metallic fangs closed in on her defenseless nape.
The time lag calculated by my CPU was 0.00074 seconds.
By that slight margin, I was faster.
*Shizuku!*
Screaming her name voicelessly via telepathy, I leapt out to shield her.
Two male-type humanoids throwing themselves toward Shizuku.
One, the zombie trying to prey on her.
The other, me.
Conquering the extreme time difference of less than a decimal point, I succeeded in sliding in front of her.
Barely, I managed to protect only Shizuku.
But that did not mean my defense was perfect.
That zombie, formerly Shizuku's partner, slammed all of his misplaced mass into me, who had shielded her. The vector of killing intent that should have pierced Shizuku's nape was sucked straight into my nape instead.
*Gunch, grrrrrrind...!*
A harsh metallic sound overlapped with the dull sound of armor crushing.
Sharp, jagged fangs like shark teeth bit deeply into the back of my neck.
"Somare-kun!"
In my arms, Shizuku raised a voice close to a scream.
But I had no leeway to reply to that now.
Intense pain.
For me, a state-of-the-art humanoid robot, a primitive feedback system like "pain" should essentially be unnecessary. Yet, whether due to the engineers' negligence or a lack of imagination in bad taste...
My system still incorporated meaningless and barbaric relics, like the "muscles to move ears" that were nearly weeded out in the process of biological evolution.
That outdated pain recognition protocol malfunctioned in this emergency—no, it operated perfectly according to specifications.
"Guh, ah, aaaaaaaaaah!"
A scream forced and output by the system burst from my throat.
From the crushed nape, a silvery-white fluid set as a blood substitute spurted out.
Heavy like mercury and possessing strong surface tension, the lubricant gushed out, directly hitting the visual sensors of the zombie biting onto me.
Robbed of vision, the zombie, perhaps falling into panic or betting everything on his "jaw," the only remaining sensory organ, bit down even harder.
Responding to the creaking sound of armor, I also released my volume limiter and grabbed the zombie's hair while screaming.
With the horsepower of my actuators at full throttle, I forcibly tore his skull away from my neck.
*Riiip*, there was a sensation of something tearing off.
The zombie did not give up on biting my nape. In his mouth, parts of the components of my neck remained, torn off.
My nape was cruelly gouged out.
From the exposed cross-section, severed wiring and microscopic actuators hung down like internal organs. Mixed with the mercury-colored body fluid leaking from there, small electric sparks scattered with a crackle.
Like sparklers writhing on damp ground, they burned small but ominously.
Due to the intense pain, pale blue tears imitating the conceptual color of "Mercury" flowed from my eyes.
I pressed a trembling hand to the wound on my torn nape.
While the software's self-repair program is robust, the hardware repair function is extremely poor. I don't know if there's a Silicon Valley saying that "software is a piece of cake compared to hardware," but in the face of physical damage, I am nearly powerless.
Amidst this gloomy situation and consciousness flickering from pain that seemed to scorch my CPU, the tactile sensors on the palm pressed to the wound detected a strange foreign object.
It was a "diploma."