She turned to look at him. “You requested help,” she said, in a clear voice. She was a little shorter than Arato, but she wasn’t showing the least bit of strain at holding her massive black device in one hand.
Arato couldn’t help but feel intimidated by her. “Uh, thanks,” he said.
Her umbrella reconfigured again, returning to its coffin form. She looked a little older than him. When she opened her lips again, he noticed how pale they were. “My name is Lacia,” she told him, and her ice blue eyes fixed on him as if waiting for a response.
It took him a moment to realize what she was waiting for. “I’m Arato Endo,” he said, voice quivering with fear that still sent tremors through his body. But the expression on her face was so calm that it helped to still the turmoil in his own heart. He realized, then, that she was beautiful enough to steal his breath away.
The black and white bodysuit she was wearing was so tight that he could see every line of her body underneath. From the way she was easily hefting her giant equipment in one hand, he could tell she wasn’t human.
Arato didn’t care who or what she was. He reached out his free right hand to take one of her hands. “We need to get out of here!” he told her. “If these flowers get you, you’ll go crazy.”
The falling flowers were being sent dancing through the air by the hot wind from the fire. The thing that had once been Marie had fallen over in the road, probably knocked down by the explosion.
The flowers that had fallen on the road and walls around them were gathering into bouquets like groups of silkworms making cocoons. They were everywhere: on houses, on the streetlights. It was like looking at a botanical garden for plastic flowers. The windows and doors of the nearby low-rise houses were completely covered in blossoms, and Arato could hear voices from inside yelling that the doors wouldn’t open.
His instincts were whispering that he needed to run away. The tentacles of fear that sprang from his childhood memories were squeezing cold sweat out of him.
But, despite being covered with the same deadly flowers that had controlled Marie and the car, Lacia continued walking calmly. “Why must we run?” she asked.
Arato tried to tug on her arm, but her thin body didn’t budge an inch. Of the two of them, only Arato’s face was creased with panic. His heart hadn’t stopped hammering since the explosion had threatened to swallow him.
Calm among the chaos of the world around them, Lacia asked him another question. “Are you afraid?”
“Of course I am! We could die here any second!” he yelled. “Anyone would be freaked out right now.”
“Then, do you intend to continue to allow that fear to overcome you?” Her question was like a sharp jab to the heart.
He hadn’t expected to get a lecture in courage from a machine. The urge to yell at her to mind her own business was strong but, even though she was a robot, he couldn’t bring himself to raise his voice at a girl like her. Instead, he asked, “What good will overcoming my fears do me now?”
“If you do not fight back now,” said Lacia, “when will you fight?”
The flowers that made machines go crazy were still falling. There were potential enemies all around them. Arato wanted to shout that this wasn’t the time or place, but in the end he kept his mouth shut from pure frustration.
Still, she may have been frustrating, but she was also beautiful. He wanted to stop walking, to stand there and face her and just look at her. But after an explosion like that, people were sure to come out of their homes to see what had happened. They would get dragged into whatever was going on. Imagining what would happen, Arato felt a horrible, sickly chill run up his spine.
The demon flowers in Lacia’s pale violet hair had started to bloom. Her black coffin looked like a giant bouquet.
Forget fighting back; there was literally nothing Arato could do. While he tried and failed to think of a course of action, the petals on her white skin began to sprout short legs.
Arato felt like he was about to lose his mind to pure terror. “Just stay still for a second,” he said, then clenched his teeth and reached out one hand. The flowery crown that had formed from layers of blossoms scattered and fell. He managed to brush away the danger that had threatened her, and the thought that he could contribute something gave him courage.
“Looks like you were right. I can fight back after all; I just needed to try,” said Arato, thanking her with his actions.
Lacia was an hIE, so maybe it was like his buddies had said, and she wouldn’t understand the human emotions he was showing her. But still, he was satisfied just showing her his thanks.
“Let’s go!” He squeezed Lacia’s hand and pulled her along with him. This time she didn’t resist. He noticed, with surprise, that her hands were warm.
There was always the danger of another car trying to run him down, so he kept to the narrower streets of the residential district.
“Lacia, you’re an hIE, right?” he asked. “Could you call the police?”
When he finally had the presence of mind to check, Arato noticed that the only thing falling from the sky anymore was a gentle rain. Looking back, he saw that there was no visible wrecks on the main street. He ran past the side of the burning car, which was still covered in flowers. The flowers on the ground were flowing toward Arato and Lacia like a wave.
Without lungs, Lacia didn’t run out of breath even running along with the giant black weapon in one hand. “The police lack equipment capable of disabling this enemy,” she told him.
Even though he was running for his life, Arato felt his heart soaring so much he wanted to yell, probably because of Lacia’s hand, which was gripped tightly in his.
The familiar sight of the town at night seemed brand new to his eyes, and he had no idea where he was running to. Arato just knew that he was running together with a girl who wasn’t actually a human. All he knew about her was her name.
He looked back at Lacia and she spoke, her light violet hair bouncing as she ran. “Arato, do you trust me?”
Lacia wasn’t an ordinary hIE. Arato thought her appearance and the falling flowers could even be connected, somehow.
“Yes!” Despite his doubts, Arato’s yell split the night. He figured it would be uncool of him to doubt a girl.
He may not have had a destination in mind, but he was running full speed, holding tight to Lacia’s hand. If he kept running in that direction for another five minutes, though, they would arrive at the Endo apartment, where Yuka was waiting.