“Come on, come on …” Mechamaru muttered.
When he reached a point higher than the factory, he used his mouth to rip the keychain from his right arm. Even that action further eroded his arm. At the zenith of his arc, he experienced a moment of weightlessness, then twisted his body and swung his near-demolished arm downward.
“Tch!” The curse user realized what Mechamaru was aiming for and began to flee, but it was too late.
At the Goodwill Event, Mechamaru had carelessly turned his back on Panda, and this scene now played in Kokichi’s head. His certainty in finishing the fight with a big move had caused him to permit an opening.
Choosing this particular tactic might have been irrational. Perhaps it was too sentimental for someone who had joined hands with cursed spirits to want to bring this body home from a fight. He wanted that more than ever, however, when he looked at the cheap keychain. These irrational feelings fueled Kokichi’s cursed energy.
“You should have kept your shikigami nearby for defense,” Mechamaru said.
If obsession gave rise to curses, then sorcerers could change curses into strength. Mechamaru fired his boosters at the same time he swung, packing his right arm with maximum force.
A scene from the anime Kokichi used to watch flashed in the back of his mind. It was a powerful signature move, and everyone who admired robots knew about it. A steel fist launching and flying through the air …
“Rocket Punch!”
Like a dark gray shooting star, it parted the cloud of gas. Launched at high speed, his fist assumed the momentum of a cannon ball. Mechamaru often used firearms and projectiles, so his aim with this long-range attack was sure to be accurate.
If the curse user had been more agile, he could have dodged, but he was a shikigami user in a respirator. He made a desperate attempt to loose his shikigami, but he was too late. Mechamaru’s fists were faster than wind.
“Uaaaarrrrgggghhhhh!” The shikigami user’s scream, muffled by the gas mask, sounded from the stereos of several abandoned cars.
When Mechamaru’s fist struck, the explosion swallowed those screams. The shikigami frantically flitted around, losing control and plummeting to the ground. Kokichi, realizing the curse user had fallen unconscious, managed to land then, despite missing both arms.
“Oof …” he sighed.
Kokichi wondered why he had been so desperate to preserve an expendable body. What powered his steel puppet was his own desire to return home and see his friends again.
The curtain lifted and a drizzle washed away the cloud of gas. It was all over, and Mechamaru was still standing.
A pleasant blue sky stretched overhead. It was the morning after the mission. Mechamaru was sitting on a bench in the courtyard of Jujutsu High. He vaguely pondered what the clouds, white and drifting slowly overhead, resembled.
Light footfalls approached from the direction of the school building. He lowered his eyes and turned to see Miwa.
“Mechamaruuu!” she cried.
“Miwa?” he asked.
“Whaddaya mean, ‘Miwa?’ You went off on that mission and then never stopped by the classroom after. I was wondering what became of you!”
Mechamaru was quiet then.
“Why so silent?” Miwa asked.
“You were worried about me?”
She made an indignant face. “Of course I was!”
Kokichi figured that he would have been worried about his comrade if he had been in her position. The fight, however, had happened to a substitute body in a place outside the city. That she thought her concern about him was a matter of course awakened a funny feeling in him. Mechamaru paused before once again looking up at Miwa.
“Miwa,” he said.
“Yes?” she replied.
“I’m back.”
“Yeah, well … welcome back.”
Kokichi felt like that brief exchange lasted an eternity. Satisfaction and a touch of sadness filled Kokichi’s breast. Miwa couldn’t look inside him to see his complicated feelings, so she just smiled.
“But you could’ve said it a little sooner,” she said.
“Well, I felt awkward about it,” he replied.
“Why?”
“Because the scrunchie got ripped off,” he admitted.
“Oh.” Miwa blinked her round eyes empathetically. “You worry about that kind of stuff, huh?”
“Is that surprising?” he asked.
“Well, I still don’t know a lot about you,” she replied.
“And you worry about that stuff too, huh?” he asked.
“Is that surprising?”
“Not at all,” he replied.
Miwa laughed at how naturally their banter came, but Mechamaru didn’t. He didn’t have a function for laughing. Kokichi, however, glanced away from what Mechamaru was showing him and looked around in the dim light of his room, at piles of folded clothes. He had the burnt keychain inside a pocket.
If he told Miwa that he had been careful to bring back her gift, how would she react? He felt it would be a horrible waste to see that through Mechamaru’s eyes and instead imagined what a sight that would be. Only then did he realize the importance of announcing one’s return.
For that matter, how would it feel if he ever told her, “It’s been nice to get to know you”? When she learned what he had done, what kind of face would she—would they all—make? He wouldn’t mind if she seemed confused or displeased. He just wanted to see it with his own eyes.
“Miwa,” he said.
“Yes, Mechamaru?”
I’ll come see you soon. He couldn’t bring himself to say it, so he just said, “Never mind.”
Mechamaru didn’t laugh. He didn’t shed tears. But that was only because he didn’t have a function for showing emotion. At that time, no one knew even that small fact about him.