Chapter 3:
Go! The Rentaro Robot!
“OHH! LOOKS LIKE THE RENTARO FAMILY WAS first to the rooftop today,” said Rentaro.
“We are in possession of the biggest group, so that sounds reasonable from a probability perspective,” Nano remarked.
‹Comrades.› ‹We are.› ‹Brothers-in-arms!›
“Hmph! It’s not like I came because I wanted to or anything!” Karane insisted.
“Uh, are you being tsundere toward the roof?” asked Hakari.
The four first-year girls took their usual places, chatting happily all the while.
“Yo.” The next to join the group was Kurumi, nodding her head slightly in greeting. “Yo…yogurt! I’d kill for some yogurt!”
Kurumi’s word association prompted her stomach to start rumbling as always, so Rentaro whipped out a tub of yogurt from the bag of food he always kept on standby for her. “I thought you might say that, so I brought you some!”
“Today, Kusuri make Karane try ‘Lose All Reason Medicine’ and see what happens,” said Kusuri. “Okay, Karane, take nice, good sip!”
“If I drank that, I would end up crushing your little spine, wouldn’t I?” asked Karane.
“A-aye, that was a joke…”
“Your drugs frequently go beyond jokes,” Kurumi commented.
‹If only it were not so.›
“Karane-san, you wouldn’t even need to take a drug to perform that kind of feat on the regular,” Hakari commented.
“One could say that Inda Karane actually has a strong sense of reason, given that she only expresses a limited extent of the violence she is capable of,” Nano chimed in.
“You think I’m some tragic monster who’s desperately restraining herself from hurting people?” Karane grumbled.
Things had gotten even livelier after Kusuri showed up. All they needed now was for Hahari and Mei to join the group, and then the entire gang would be assembled.
“Urgent news, everyone!” A frantic Hahari came dashing onto the roof with Mei at her side.
‹What avails you?›
“I bet she just made some new baby clothes or something,” said Hakari.
“She always says that whenever she makes a whole ton of clothes and wants someone to try them on,” Karane agreed.
“She asked Kusuri if she could make medicine to turn people five years old,” Kusuri remarked.
“You don’t have to go along with that. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t,” said Hakari.
“It is more efficient to target an age before teeth have grown in,” Nano said.
It wasn’t unusual to see Hahari, the oldest member of the group, in an excitable state. In fact, everyone else was used to seeing her flustered. This time, however…
“The vice principal suddenly turned into a giant and went on a rampage! She’s causing mayhem in town!”
“Well, that came out of nowhere!” Karane and Kurumi reacted swiftly to Hahari’s report.
“It is possible that Hahari’s mental state has worsened. That could be the result of these delusions,” came Nano’s equally rapid-fire comment.
“No, I’m not the only one who saw it!” Hahari looked at Mei. That glance alone was enough for the maid to completely anticipate her master’s intentions.
“Please look at this.” Mei showed everyone a news clip on her smartphone. The screen displayed the vice principal, who was indeed now taller than your average apartment building.
“Geh heh heh! I’ll snag every hot guy! Give ’em to me, and I’ll give ’em a big smooch! Behold my Stuff a Hottie Into My Mouth technique!”
The hapless cries of the town’s menfolk rang out as each male was sucked into the vice principal’s mass of hair, one after the other. It made for a hellish sight.
“No, seriously, is this still a rom-com or have we gone into another genre entirely?!”
Everyone (besides Nano and Mei) gaped in shock at this utterly surreal video.
“That implies we were a normal rom-com to begin with,” Nano said.
“Anyway,” said Hahari. “The time has come to use the secret weapon!”
“You can’t just skip to the climax already! Do the exposition!” yelled Karane.
“I still haven’t digested the fact that the vice principal suddenly turned into a giant,” said Kurumi, who appeared to have finished her yogurt, judging by the adorable sound of her rumbling stomach. Karane nonchalantly handed her a cookie, saving Kurumi’s stomach from distress.
“Mei!” Hahari barked at her maid once again.
Right on command, Mei pressed some kind of switch. “Yes, my lady.”
‹I sensed the will to proceed.› ‹In spite of all obstacles.›
The roof shook violently. Shizuka gulped audibly, sweat running down her cheek.
“An earthquake?! Everyone, get under me!” Rentaro spread his arms and covered the smols of the group—Shizuka and Kusuri—with his upper body.
Then, just as a drooling Hakari came toward him with an intention other than self-preservation in mind, the roof and the school building steadily split apart. Something rose from the ground.
“I thought that this might happen, so I had something developed… The Rentaro-chan Robot!”
It was exactly as the name implied.
The robot’s slender body was over twenty meters tall. Like Rentaro, it had thick, symmetrical eyebrows, along with prickly hair. Though it was a machine, it still retained Rentaro’s willful eyes. Its limbs and body shape also resembled Rentaro’s—really, it was a dead ringer overall.
“You thought what might happen, so you had what developed?!” yelled Karane.
“Look,” said Hakari, “it actually is coming in handy…”
“Yeah, that’s the weird part!” Kurumi retorted.
“By the way,” Kusuri said cheerfully, “the reason vice principal got so big was ’cuz Hahari told Kusuri to make Biggifying Medicine, and vice principal drank it!”
“Goodness gracious, Kusuri-chan! You promised not to tell!” Hahari covered Kusuri’s mouth as she spilled the beans.
It was too late, however—the truth had already come out. The others groaned. “So, you’re taking credit for solving a problem you created!”
“A reasonably logical conclusion.” Nano appeared to have surmised the cause right from the very start. “That was the only conceivable reason for a person to turn into a giant.”
Kurumi shot her an incredulous look. “The fact that you can even think of a reason why someone would turn into a giant is what’s crazy here.”
“Aye?! Did Hahari tell Kusuri to make Biggifying Medicine just to turn vice principal giant?”
‹To wreak such devastation upon a fellow under your employ…›
“No, no, you’ve got it wrong! The vice principal drank it by accident!” Hahari waved her hands frantically, trying to reassure the worried Shizuka. “What I really wanted to do was drink it myself and then wrap you all up as your big mommy!” Hahari appeared to be in rhapsody imagining that hypothetical scenario.
Kurumi turned a cold glare at her. “Then the vice principal made a fair call.”
“The drug was in my pocket, but I dropped it in the hallway,” Hahari explained. “Then the vice principal found it and said, ‘The boys might drink this!’ She then chugged it all in one go.”
“The moral of the story is take care with dangerous substances,” said Karane.
“To be fair, the vice principal’s got to have more than a few screws loose if she drank an unknown liquid out of a test tube with zero hesitation.” Kurumi looked rather exasperated at the whole story, although deep down, she knew she might have done the same thing if she felt a bit parched.
“Vice principal lost her marbles as a side effect of the Biggifying Medicine and turned into huge threat! We gotta use robot to stop her and make her drink Medicine-Reversing Medicine!” Kusuri declared.
Karane side-eyed her. “You’re saying that as if she’s normally in possession of her marbles.”
“Please… Let’s all pilot the robot,” Hahari said with an utterly straight face. She spoke in a quiet voice, but one filled with firm resolve.
“Why are you so gung-ho about getting in the robot?” Karane shot back.
“Don’t tell me this is a ‘Shinji, get in the damn robot’ joke, aye?” asked Kusuri.
“Stop reading into it! Now I feel like I made a bad joke!”
“You’re all failing to understand the gravity of the situation here.” Hakari cut off the banter, her expression deadpan.
“Wh-what?” said Karane. “Sure, I know the town’s in danger, but…”
“That’s true, but you have to recall what the vice principal said earlier!” Hakari insisted.
The girls’ eyes widened in understanding. Their gazes swiveled to Rentaro. If the vice principal had been serious when she’d said “Geh heh heh! I’ll snag every hot guy!” then…
“Rentaro’s in danger!” gasped Karane. “N-not that I think Rentaro is a hottie or anything!”
‹Our beloved.› ‹Rentaro-kun.› ‹Could he be whisked away?!›
“It would be logical to use the measures already in place to stop her.”
At Nano’s words, the girlfriends nodded in unison.
“You’re all doing this for me? I’m so grateful! I want to stop the vice principal’s rampage and help the people in town! Let’s pilot that robot!” While Rentaro spoke of earnest justice, there was just a hint of excitement in his words as well. Rentaro was very much a boy, after all.
“Open the boarding gate!”
Rentaro turned to the robot, snapped his fingers…and the robot had absolutely no reaction whatsoever.
“It doesn’t have that function,” Hahari said apologetically. “You’ll have to use that ladder to climb into the cockpit. I’m so, so sorry! I’ll be sure to make improvements for next time!”
“Uh, okay…”
Rentaro looked a little embarrassed, but he took the lead, nonetheless. The girls boarded the machine after him.