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your-mr-sf · 7 years ago

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ZOLLAR WARS Story

ZOLLAR WARS

Skyler Fernandez

ZOLLAR WARS

ZOLLARS isn’t just a gang website like the Dollars, it is also a virtual online world like OZ. It is a better and cool combination of both the Dollars and OZ from Durarara!! and Summer Wars, but for real!

ZOLLARS is a virtual world on the internet. The amount of people who use ZOLLARS has spread faster than cell phones. Users from all over the world create a virtual self called an “avatar” with which they live their lives. And I mean their lives literally. Games, shopping, businesses, and even legal processes. Just like in the real world, you can do almost everything inside ZOLLARS. Every business in the real world has at least one branch shop in ZOLLARS. World affairs are also shifting to ZOLLARS as well. That is “ZOLLARS,” the world’s greatest communication tool—

My name’s Sora Jackman. Cool name, I know right? I’m a cool guy when it comes t being the leader of the ZOLLARS, but in college I am just a regular guy. I’m a young student at the College of Wooster in Ohio with a gift in mathematics and science and part-time moderator for ZOLLARS along with my friend Kenta Watson.

Anyway, back in 2010 I had an idea to make a website similar to the Dollars and OZ, so I combined them together to make the next best thing. I gotten an internet company to make my dreams and ideas come true. Four years late, we finally managed to make it possible. They may have created it, but I was the one who came up with that idea in the first place, so I was named leader of the Zollars. I love to keep my leadership a secret though. Before we get any further, I’d like to talk more about myself and everything else.

I just finished my junior year in college about a month and ten days ago on Friday, May 23rd. I’ll be starting my senior year on Thursday, August 7th but the thing that sucks is that my long time crush Mitsuki Fuji has graduated here this year and I might not get to see her again. The other thing that sucks is that I didn’t get to go to the Math and Science Olympics this year and I was so close to representing Ohio, much less the United States of America. Kenta and I are 21 years-old (well, I will be 21) and Mitsuki is one year older than us, she is good at athletics and at a Japanese card game called ‘Koh Koh.’

She’s a good friend of ours and spirited girl. We’re both in the Physics Club together or was, now it is just me and Kenta. Now read of how my whole life goes upside down.

THE NEWS: ‘This is the midday news report for Tuesday, July 1st, 2014. The asteroid probe sent to space by NASA has completed its orbit around the Sun, however, it’s being brought back towards Earth to deal with some technical problems.’

Sora and Kenta were doing some maintenance checks on ZOLLARS.

“I can’t believe I didn’t get to represent Ohio,” Sora said to Kenta. “I was so close.”

“You’re still depressed over that?” Kenta asked. “Jeez man, get over it.”

“OK!” yelled a headed turkey male avatar. “Less chatting, more working!”

“OK,” Kenta said. “ Seriously, all of this moping you’re doing is really bugging me out.”

“I guess.”

“Hey, let’s go pick up some hot girls to eat watermelons watch fireworks for the 4th of July,” he said blushing. “More girls, more fireworks, more watermelon, and more summer.”

“I’m just going to stick with more watermelons and fireworks,” Sora said. “Hey, its been working for me so far.”

Then Mitsuki Fuji came charging in here by slamming the door straight open, which made them jump.

“Hey, you two wanna a job?!” Mitsuki asked loudly.

It took a few hesitate seconds for one of them to anser and it was Kenta that spoke first. “That’s kind of what we’re doing.”

“What? Really? You are?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Kenta said, “we do maintenance checks on ZOLLARS.”

“You two work for ZOLLARS?” she asked. “Awesome.”

“Nah, we just take care of the outermost systems, pretty routine.”

“I see,” she said. “Well, I guess that’s it than. I’ll just have to deal with it.”

“What kind of job is it anyway?”

“To travel with me to my hometown—

“I’ll do it!!” Kenta got up, hand raised, and excited.

“Me too!!” Sora said doing the same thing Kenta did.

“Really?!” she asked looking at them happily excited.

“Yes!!” they said at the same time.

“Count us both in,” Sora said.

“Two could get complicated,” she said.

“Huh?” both said.

“All I need is one,” she said, “so who’s it gonna be?”

In case you were or are wondering; yes it was Sora who won rock, paper, scissors. If Sora or Kenta won three times, then one of them would go with Mitsuki tomorrow to Japan. The first was a draw, both scissors. The second Sora won using scissors, the third Kenta won using paper, Kenta won the fourth using scissors, Sora won using scissors on the fifth round. Sora did a move and trick Sora learned from the fourth book of the Percy Jackson series.

Since that wasn’t fare to Kenta, Sora didn’t count that one and chose to go again. Sora’s plan was to distract Kenta, so he could win. The seventh round was a draw of paper. Kenta surprised him using gun as well, but they didn’t count that one either. Ninth round was a rock draw.

Kenta said lets both draw gun but change it to something else. So they drew gun, then they started to change it to one of the three to win. Sora made his look like he was going to draw rock, so Kenta could draw paper but Sora tricked him and drew scissors and Kenta lost. If he knew Sora would draw scissors, he would have drawn rock or if Sora still used rock, he would have won with paper or if they’d have had a draw again, then one of them would have won the next one but Sora was smart enough to counterattack and trick Kenta into thinking all of that.

Anyway, Sora got up at 7:00 a.m. to make him a fast breakfast of bagels to eat. He already packed him seven pairs of clean clothes and pajamas in his backpack last night, so he was ready to go.

He left at 8:30 a.m., Kenta’s mom was happy enough to take him to Wooster Wayne County Airport, which only took thirteen minutes to get to from the college. On the way, he watched King Haruto beat the Martial Arts Championship time record on his phone in ZOLLARS.

Mitsuki texted a message to a relative of hers saying: ‘Getting on the airplane now.’ With her avatar on the ZOLLARS.

“Sora!” she called out spotting him. “Hey, I’m over here!”

It was 8:43 a.m., when he got there and 8:47 a.m., when she spotted him.

He ran to get to her when he saw her after she called his name.

“Sorry, I’m late.”

“You’re right on time,” she said. “I bet you, Kenta would have token all morning.”

“Whatever needs doing, I’m here for ya,” he said. “Just say the word and I’ll be on it.”

“Thanks a lot,” she said. “For starters, how about grabbing these?”

She had five bags and Sora had to carry four of them. They boarded the airplane at 9:00 a.m. and it took off thirty minutes later.

“Ueda, Japan?” Sora asked.

“It’s great-grandma’s birthday party,” she said. “Our relatives will be coming all over Japan, so we could use some extra help.”

We ordered some snacks while on the plane.

“So how are you going to represent Ohio?”

“Huh?”

“Kenta mentioned you was almost close to representing Ohio in some way,” she said. “Oh come on, what’s all the blushing about?”

“Well, I almost got to go to the Math & Science Olympics this year.”

“Wait, Olympics for math and science? Hey, you must be really good, huh?”

“Good thing, because I stink at almost everything else.”

“Seriously, then show me what you got.”

“OK,” he said, “tell me the year and date that you were born.”

“OK, it was June 14th, 1992.”

“On a Friday.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what date June 14th, 1992 was,” he said. “It was a Friday.”

“You’re saying you memorized all the dates?”

“No, I just used modulo method,” he said. “So did I get it right?”

“Uh, I don’t know what date it was.”

“I’ll just go to timeanddate.com to find out,” he said. “And I got it right! Whoo! Yeah!”

“Shhh!!” said all of the passengers.

It took an hour and forty-seven minutes to get to Metropolitan Topeka Airport in Kansas and it was an hour behind their time.

“Landing in Topeka, Kansas,” said the captain.

They had to wait until 10:30 a.m. (11:30 a.m. in their own time) to board the next flight. They bought some early lunch to take with them on the plane. At 11:00 a.m. (12:00 p.m. in their own time), they took off.

“My great-grandma is turning 100 in a couple of days,” she said. “Crazy, huh?”

“She was born on 1914?” Sora asked. “Talk about a full life.”

It took seven hours and five minutes to get to L.A.X. (Los Angeles International Airport) in California. Its time was three hours behind their time, but it would be two hours away from the time in Kansas.

The flight to Japan wasn’t boarding people until 4:30 p.m. (Kansas 6:30 p.m.; Ohio 7:30 p.m.). Sora and Mitsuki gotten themselves supper to eat before boarding the plane. The plane took them off at 5:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. in Kansas and 8:00 p.m. in Ohio). It took eleven hours and eighteen minutes to get to Japan at the airport called: Narita International Airport.

While they waited during that time, instead of being quiet the whole time. They took pictures of each other, laughed, made silly faces and told jokes. When night was coming upon them and they fell asleep the whole way. Later, the female attendant woke them up and said that they would be landing shortly. So Mitsuki, ZOLLAR texted one of her relatives saying: ‘We’ll be landing shortly. Get ready to send in a driver to wait for us at the airport.’

It was 8:18 p.m. when they landed (4:18 a.m. in CA, 6:18 a.m. in KS, and 7:18 a.m. in OH). It was 8:30 p.m. when they arrived to the exist to leave the airport and spotted a driver holding a sign that said: MS. FUGI.

“Hey, driver over here!” Mitsuki called out and waved her hand out to the driver.

“Are you, Ms. Fuji?” the driver asked as they approached him.

“Yup, that’s me.”

“Then please come right in and please allow me to put your bags in the trunk.”

“Sure, thanks.”

It took them an hour and five minutes to get to Ikebukuro (that’s in Toshima, Tokyo, Japan).

“Ikebukuro?” Sora asked. “Why stop there?”

“Well, since it is night time now,” she said. “Thought maybe we could sleep at a friend’s place for the night.”

“Really?”

“It won’t be long until we get to Ueda in the morning anyway.”

“Oh, I see,” Sora said. “Oh Mitsuki?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you know Ikebukuro is the place that the Durarara!! characters live in?”

“I know, right?” she said. “That’s why we are really going to Ikebukuro. To see them.”

“Who?”

“Celty and them.”

“What?!”

“Yeah,” Mitsuki said, “as it turns out. They are real living people.”

“Whoa!” Sora said surprised and freaked out by the discovery.

“I know, right?”

It was 9:35 p.m. when they arrived in Ikebukuro. They only took the luggage that they need (Sora got his backpack, which was the only thing he brought with him and Mitsuki got her tiny bag of clean clothes for tomorrow and pajamas too), while the driver was going to go on and take Mitsuki’s other luggages to Ueda to her relatives. While they stayed for the night there in Ikebukuro with one of Mitsuki’s Durarara!! friends.

It took the them five minutes to find who they was looking for but it turned out that the person found them. It was the Black Rider a.k.a. Celty Sturluson, the Dullahan looking for her head in Japan.

“Whoa! No way!” Sora said surprised to seeing the actual Black Rider in person.

“Way,” Mitsuki said.

Mitsuki waved her hand at Celty, “Hi Celty! Good to see you again.”

She typed on her PDA and showed it to them to see what she was saying to them. A way for her to communicate with people.

‘It’s good to see you too,’ she said. ‘I got your message as soon as you texted me.’

“That’s great,” Mitsuki said. “Oh Celty, this is Sora. He’s my friend in America, he’s from Ohio, and he’s very good at math.”

“And science,” Sora said. “Anyway, it’s nice to meet you, Celty. I’m a big fan of you, Shizuo, and the rest of the gang.”

‘I’m honored and it’s very nice to meet you too, Sora,’ she said. ‘It’s very nice to have a big fan who isn’t terrified of me or Shizuo, right?’

“Right.”

‘You two ready to go?’

“Of course,” Mitsuki said.

“Going where?” Sora asked.

‘Why to my place, of course.’

“Oh right, I almost forgot about that,” Sora said now realizing it. “Yeah, I’m ready too.”

‘Good,’ Celty said, ‘hop on everyone.’

“OK,” Sora said.

“Alright,” Mitsuki said.

Mitsuki got on first and held on to Celty, while Sora got on behind Mitsuki and held on to her.

Celty wrapped their stuff bads in her shadows shapped as spheres, one on each side of her motorcycle (which is really her headless horse name Shooter).

‘You ready?’ she asked the both of them.

“Yeah,” they said at the same time.

‘Hold on, okay?’

They nodded.

Once Celty took off, her horse made that noise and the ride was exciting, until a motorcycle cop showed up behind them.

“Police! Pull over now, monster!” the cop ordered on his intercom.

“Oh please tell me that’s not who I think it is,” Sora said.

“Oh yeah, it’s Kinnosuke alright,” Mitsuki replied.

“NO!!” Sora shouted in panick. “I don’t want to go to jail! I’m gonna die in there!”

‘Not yet!’ Celty replied.

Now they were going at an accelerating speed limit that not even the cop could follow them up to. They turned to their right and hid in an alley, until Kinnosuke passed by them.

Then they laughed.

“That was the most exciting thing that I have ever done in my whole life!” Sora shouted in excitement. “Whoo!”

They continued to laugh a bit longer.

‘Alright, let’s go.’

“Right,” they both said.

They took off once again and this time there was no police after them the whole way to Celty and Shinra’s apartment. It was 9:50 p.m. when they got there and five minutes later for when they went up the elevator, Celty putting her motorcycle up, and going into the apartment room.

“Oh, welcome home, Celty,” Shinra said out loud, “Oh hey, Mitsuki.”

“Hey Shinra, hi.”

“It’s nice to see you again.”

“It’s nice to see you again too, Shinra.”

“And who might this be?” Shinra asked curiously.

“This is Sora,” she said, “he’s a friend of mine from Ohio in America.”

“Ohio, huh?” he said. “I never been to America but I’d love to see it. I bet it’s great.”

“It sure is,” Sora said.

“That’s good,” Shinra said, “I’ll be sure to visit there one day. Anyway, you two are free to use the shower to wash up if you guys want?”

“Sure. Thanks,” Mitsuki said, “that’ll be great.”

“Yeah great,” Sora said, “I’ll let you go first, Mitsuki.”

“You sure?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure. Why not, right?”

“Right.”

It was 10:43 p.m., when Mitsuki finally gotten out of the shower.

“Alright Sora, you’re up,” she said. “It’s your turn, you can go in now.”

“OK,” Sora said. “Thanks Mitsuki.”

“Your welcome.”

‘She sure sounds like she’s mothering Sora a bit don’t you think, Shinra?’ Celty asked Shinra.

“Mothering Sora? No way, Celty,” he said. “But now that I think about it, she was mothering Sora just now, wasn’t she?”

‘It sure looks that way.’

“Let’s just forget about that happening just now, okay?”

‘Okay,’ Celty agreed. ‘Weird, huh?’

“Oh yeah, weird.”

It was 11:30 p.m., when Sora finally got out of the shower.

He saw Mitsuki coming in the hall to talk to him, “Oh hey, Mitsuki. What is it? Is something wrong?”

“Oh no. I just came to tell you that I’ll be sleeping in the guest room, while you on the other hand will be sleeping on the couch. Is that okay?”

“Uh . . . yeah. Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll get use to it.”

“Okay,” she said, “Thanks Sora.”

“You’re welcome,” Sora said out loud as she left the hallway and off to the guest room. “Oh an-an-and goodnight, Mitsuki.”

“And goodnight to you too, Sora,” she said out loud for him to hear.

He could hear her giggle and he smiled just hearing it.

It was 11:35 p.m., when Sora went to bed (well the couch) and he rested easy thanks to the air conditioner.

It was 6:20 a.m. in the morning when he was woken up for breakfast. He’s been sleeping for six hours and forty-five minutes.

“Hey Sora,” Mitsuki said out loud for him to hear her as she shook him on the shoulder.

Sora groaned.

“Come on, it’s time to get up. We got breakfast ready for you,” she said.

Sora woke and got up automatically, “Breakfast?!”

“Thanks.”

“Your welcome.”

After they ate pancakes, bacon, eggs, sausage and drank orange juice, they left with Celty the same way they did last night. They left at 7:32 a.m.

“Where did you guys get all that breakfast this morning?” Sora asked. “I didn’t think you guys had American food in Japan?”

‘We got it at a grocery store, it’s a little hard to come by but we managed to get it for you two,’ Celty answered.

“For us?”

“Yeah, I asked Celty on the ZOLLARS to buy us breakfast before we got here, so when we spent the night at hers and Shinra’s place, we would have breakfast in the morning.”

“Oh cool,” Sora said. “So will there be more cops following us on the way to Ueda in Nagano?”

“Nope,” said both Celty and Mitsuki.

“Why not?”

‘The motorcycle cops never come after me in the early day time, unless someone was after me or something bad happens. And they would never suspect me leaving Ikebukuro to get to Ueda either.’

“But should we be going faster just in case?” he asked.

‘You just read my mind, Sora.’

She started to go faster now and Sora started to panick and scream before enjoying it.

It took them two hours and thirty-two minutes to get to Ueda.

“Faster Celty!” Mitsuki begged and encouraged Celty in excitement.

‘Alright, hang on!’

She want even faster to get them to Mitsuki’s great-grandmother’s house.

Normally they would have gotten there by one hour and forty-five minutes, but they got there in just forty-five minutes thanks to Celty and her horse Shooter (disguised as a black motorcycle). It was 10:49 a.m. at the time that they arrived at the big house.

“Whoa!! What in the world!!” Sora said in amazement. “You guys live here?!!”

It was awesome and amazingly big mansion.

“Granny Noriko!” Mitsuki called out to the old woman by the house entrance, Mitsuki happily waved to her as she ran to her.

“Mitsuki!” she said happy to see Mitsuki. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble coming all this way.”

“Not at all,” Mitsuki said. “My parents said they’ll come as soon as they’re done with work.”

“That’s great, hone. Everyone else has just got here as well. Well, almost everyone,” she said. “Oh Celty, it’s been a while. How are doing?”

‘Great. Thanks,’ she said in nervous way.

Then she wondered who Sora was.

“Just wanted to wish you the best of luck. Happy 100th Birthday, ma’am,” Sora said nervously.

Then after he said that, the three of them (well two) made strange faces.

“That’s very sweet, but . . . it’s my mom’s birthday,” Noriko said.

But the biggest surprise was when they met a little someone they knew that they didn’t expect to be there.

“Why hello there, Sora,” said a familiar voice.

“Wait that voice, is that?” Sora said.

“Yup, it’s me!” said the boy right behind Noriko at the doorway, “The one and only . . . Kenta Watson!”

Sora and Mitsuki were both surprised.

“KENTA?!!” they both said out loud for the whole house to hear.

“Is that really you, Kenta?” Mitsuki asked.

“Yup,” he smirked.

‘You know this guy?’ Celty asked the both of them.

“Yeah, he’s our—

“Online buddy from France and now here!”

They didn’t answer for a few seconds.

Sora finally spoke up, “What are you doing here?!! Wait a minute, how are you even here?!! How did you get here, Kenta?!!”

“It’s simple,” he answered, “I took the two o’clock flight in the morning.”

“Huh?”

‘Yeah, I’m not buying any of that.’

“You two really know this guy?” Noriko asked.

“YES!!” they both said.

“From the . . . uh, ZOLLARS website!” Sora said quickly to keep Kenta’s secret of being their college friend covered up from any trouble at all, “We’re the bestest friends there! We’ve never even got to meet him in person before until now!”

“Whoa, never?” Noriko asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Oh I see, than—

“Mitsuki!” a girl about Mitsuki’s age came running to her and hugging her. “It’s been so long, since we last met! Where’ve you been?!”

“Hana? Hana! I can’t believe it you’re here! You’re back!” Mitsuki said in excitement while hugging Hana back.

They laughed together.

Sora and Celty were clueless or confused on who this Hana character was.

“Uh.”

‘Uh, am I supposed to know her. I mean, are we supposed to know her?!’ Celty asked Sora.

“I don’t know, I just got here,” said Sora.

“Sora, Celty, this is Hana,” Mitsuki said. “She’s one of my best friends here in Japan.”

“Uh,” Sora and Celty said at the same time. “What?”

“Long story short,” the girl said, “but most people call me Ana. Because it’s a lot easier to say then Hana. Am I right or what?”

“Yeah,” said both Sora and Celty.

“So what brings you here, Hana?” Mitsuki asked.

“I came for Granny’s birthday, silly,” she said. “That’s when I met little handsome man Kenta.”

He smirked.

After that, they followed Noriko to meet the birthday lady.

It really is a samurai house . . . Sora thought, “Wow.”

“Sora, come on,” Mitsuki said.

“Oh right.”

“Um, Sora.”

“Yeah?”

“I know I’ve should have mentioned this earlier, but when you meet my great-grandma just go along with whatever I say.”

“Okay,” he said. “What’re you gonna say?”

They waited outside the doorway to the room while Noriko came in on her knees and said. “Mother.”

“Yes?” the elderly woman asked.

“I’m home, Granny,” Mitsuki said coming in.

“Oh you came,” Granny said hugging her great-granddaughter.

Noriko left the room with Kenta and Hana right behind her.

“I missed you so much. You feeling, okay?” Mitsuki asked.

“Never better, dear.”

“I’ve been worried. They’ve told me you might be sick.”

“Summer heat, stayed too long in the sun.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Mitsuki said relieved.

Then Celty came in.

“Oh Celty, it’s been a while. I’m glad to see you again,” Granny said happily. “How are you doing?”

‘I’m doing great, thanks,’ Celty replied, ‘and it’s good to see you too, Granny Eska.’

“Just Granny or Eska is fine by me, Celty,” she said. “So will you be staying, if so than your friends must be coming too?”

‘Oh yes, I’ll be here for your birthday but I’m not so sure about the others yet.’

“That’s just fine, I’m sure they’ll come.”

“Hmm?” Granny said wondering who Sora was.

“Uh, hello,” he said coming in.

Mitsuki winked at Granny as she said, “Remember what I’ve promised you?”

Sora kneeled next to Mitsuki as she scooted down a bit.

“That’s the boy?” Granny asked.

“Yup, Sora Jackman.”

“Uh, hello. Please to meet you. Mitsuki and I were both in the Physics club together, so when she asks me something—

“Um-um,” she said clearing her throat. “Yeah, so we’re going out.”

“Huh?” Sora said confused.

‘Hmm?’ Celty said wondering the same thing.

“Going out?” Granny asked.

“Yeah, Sora’s my fiancé actually.”

“What?!” Sora said confused and blushing a little.

‘Huh?!’ Celty said.

“Your fiancé?” Granny was wide eyed and couldn’t believe it too.

“Huh?” Sora said.

“Yup, my fiancé.”

“Uh?” both Sora and Celty said.

Granny and Sora (even Celty) looked back at each other still wide eyed.

Granny was the first to speak, “Well then—

“So I brought him home like I said I would.”

“Mitsuki, what the heck is going on?” Sora asked.

“Listen to this grandma, his specialty the most is Math!”

“Math?” Granny asked.

“Sora! Grandma was born on July 7th, 1914. What day was she born on?”

“Eh? A . . . a Tuesday.”

“When is the anniversary of great-grandpa’s death? It was on March 21st, 1988.”

“1988, huh? Then it would be a Monday.”

Granny asked the rest from that point on.

“Great-grandpa became a part of this family when I was 17 on September 10th, 1931.”

“Thursday!”

“He was born the same year I was. Four days before his death. On March 17—

“Tu-Tuesday, a lucky day!”

“My eldest son died 6 years ago that day of my husband’s death. He was born on January 1st, 1934. How old would he be if he was alive today?”

“Your son’s death was a Friday! His birth was a Monday! If he was still alive he would be 80 right now!”

“Sora.”

“Yeah, uh-huh?”

“This great-granddaughter of mine is no push over. Are you man enough to make my Mitsuki happy?”

“Huh? Oh, uh. Maybe, uh . . . well—

“I’m asking you if you’re man enough?”

“Um, yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, sure I am,” he said with a nervous smile.

“Man enough to die for her?”

Sora was really wide eyed and scared now but he answered, “Yes.”

She looked at him with that serious look for a few zilliseconds, than began to smile. “Lucky girl.”

She laughed.

Oh man, I thought she was gonna kill me, he thought loudly.

“Here Mitsuki,” Granny said.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Congrats,” she said giving her a Japanese dress or outfit.

“The morning glory yukata. Oh, thank you.”

“Sora, please enjoy your stay. I’m very honored to meet you,” she said bowing to him.

“No, the honors all mine. Thank you for your hospitality,” he said bowing back.

After they left Granny’s room, they went to a garage to talk in private and Celty wanted to talk what all of that was about with them too.

“I’m sorry,” Mitsuki said bowing her head to Sora.

‘What was that all about?’ Celty asked her.

“I’m getting to that.”

“I can’t do it,” Sora said.

“Come on, it’s like the easiest part time job in the world.”

“I can’t do it!”

“Come on, Granny and everyone have to think we’re a couple.”

“No, no, no, no, no. Mitsuki, I’ve never even token a girl out on a date before.”

“I don’t want to let Granny down. They said she was feeling sick, so I told her she couldn’t die before she met my awesome boyfriend a.k.a. you,” she said now holding his hands.

Sora was blushing pink red all over for a bit. “Yeah. OK.”

“Oh, thank you so much,” she said now letting go of his hands for him not to blush all over. “Okay, from now on you should act really lovey-dovey on me.”

“Huh?” he asked.

“And I got your back story,” she said. “You’re a teacher in college , you’re from an old family, and you just came from China.”

“Let’s see,” he said using his fingers to count what she just said. “College teacher, old family, studied abroad from China. That’s the complete opposite of me!”

“So we’re good?”

“No, we’re not good!”

‘Mitsuki, this is crazy! It’s not going to work!’ Celty said.

“Come on, you guys. Whatever happened to whatever needs doing?” she said. “It’s only four days, including today. After that, I’ll tell them that we broke up, pretty please?”

“I’m telling you it’s not going to work,” he said, “but . . . fine.”

‘I don’t like it, either.’ Celty said. ‘Someone will find out the truth sooner or later, but fine. We’ll do it, no point in arguing anyway.’

The rest of the family started to show up, except for three more people that were supposed to show up. I’m going to talk about what the family are doing right now, we’ll introduce them in a bit. Right now, let’s continue with the story, shall we?

Makato, son of Eska, was checking the Akita dog Hachi’s mouth.

“Looks like were both getting old,” Makato told Hachi while checking Hachi’s teeth.

Than a fish truck showed up, it was Makato’s brother Masato who arrived in that truck.

“Hey,” Makato said to his brother waving at him.

“Hey,” Masato said back while getting a cooler out of the back of his truck.

Than Haruna and Takeru, daughter and son of Noriko showed up on a motorcycle.

“Thanks, bro.”

“Sis, your helmet.”

She took her helmet off and threw it to her brother.

Midori, wife of Hiroki, the son of Makato and the kids were watching a baseball game and her son was the pitcher in the game.

“Strike three and that’s the game. Pitcher Ryo is thrilled and crazy,” the speaker said on TV.

Midori and the kids cheered as Haruna came in.

“Did he win?” Haruna asked as she sat down.

“Mmm-hmm,” Midori nodded.

Three of the five kids left to tell everyone that Ryo won the game.

“Let’s go to tell everybody!” Jiro said.

“Yeah, let’s go tell them!” Ichiro said.

“Yeah!” Yumiko said.

They ran down the hall to tell everyone who won the game.

“—I didn’t see this coming,” the second speaker said.

“I thought they were done for—

“I thought they were done for? What you know?!” Midori said.

The kids ran to Hiroto and Nami, seeing them replace a light bulb, “Ryo won, Ryo won!” they said.

“Good for him,” Hiroto said.

“Go tell, Granny the good news,” Nami said.

“OK!” they said happily.

“Granny!” Jiro said as he and the other two left the hallway.

“Mitsuki, have you lost your mind!” yelled Shoji, son of Hiroto.

“Quiet, Shoji!” Hiroto shouted. “No need to yell like that!”

“Your fiancé?! Cousin Shoji, objects! Damn, I was too slow,” he said looking around for Mitsuki and her fiancé.

The kids ran to the kitchen to tell the women that are cooking that Ryo won.

“Ryo won, Ryo won!” they said.

“That’s great,” the four women said.

The four women are Noriko, Haruka, Mami, and Yumi.

“Brought something for the victory party,” Masato said just coming in laying down three coolers.

They all asked what he brought and what it was as they came up to see what it was.

“Jackpot,” he said opening it.

“Squid,” Jiro said.

“And then,” Masato said opening the second one.

“Even more squid,” Ichiro said.

“And for dessert,” Masato said.

They were all like ‘uh.’

“Why’s it all squid?” Yumiko asked.

Masato got up and laughed.

When it was night time, they all sat down to eat dinner/supper but before that, Sora was introduced to the whole family by Mitsuki.

“All right, introduction time,” Mitsuki said. “The head of the family is my great-grandmother Eska. She has four children. As you know, the son was Yuto, my grandfather, who passed away six years ago. We have her eldest daughter, Noriko and her two children, Haruna and Takeru. Then we have Masato and his children, Nami, Haruka, and Hiroto. Shoji is Hiroto’s son. The last son is Makato, he has three boys who aren’t here by the way but their names are Takeo, Isamu, and Hiroki. Takeo’s wife there is Yumi and her two kids, Jiro and Yumiko. That’s Isamu’s wife, Mami and her daughter, Shizuka. There’s Hiroki’s wife, Midori, her three children are Ryo, Ichiro, and Saburo. Ryo is off playing baseball with his team before he gets back for Granny’s birthday. Last but not least, are my parents that are not present either are Taro and Sachiko. You get all that?”

“Uh . . . yeah. More or less.” Sora said.

“Well, you get the idea.” Nami said.

“Please to meet you!” everyone said and went to eating.

“Yeah, please to meet you too. Thanks for having me, I guess.” Sora said.

Everyone was chatting, eating, and drinking.

“Wow, I’m amazed Granny gave Mitsuki’s boyfriend the okay.” Haruna said.

“No kidding, every time I brought a back home. She was all mean, she would send him back to the bus stop,” Nami said.

“College teacher in China, studied abroad there, an old family, of course she likes him,” Haruna said.

Sora was surprised that they knew about the story already, but they still didn’t know it was a lie yet.

“Quite the renaissance man,” Nami said.

“Sounds too good to be true,” Haruna said.

That’s because it’s not, Sora and Celty thought at the same time.

“Maybe the spencer club should take some notes,” Masato said.

The two argued or complained about what he just said, but no one could quit keep up what they were saying.

“Oh yeah, there was a middle school age kid and a high schooler in a back room. Who are they?” Kenta asked.

“Ah, that older one would be my Haruto,” Haruka said. “He isn’t too good at these type of gatherings.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it, I can compare to that,” Sora said.

“The younger one is my son, Naruto,” Haruna said. “He’s probably still battling Haruto on a game.”

“By the way, when’s the due date?” Makato asked Sora.

“Huh?” Sora asked in confusion. “Due date?”

“Yeah, you know. For the baby?” Makato asked.

“What?!”

“Stop being a pervert,” Yumi said to Makato. “What’s wrong with you?”

“He only came to say hello,” Noriko said.

“Ah, but I thought he came to say ‘hello,’ because he got her in a family way. You’ve done it, right? What am I saying, you’re a college teacher of course you’ve done it.”

“Just drink your beer,” Noriko told him.

“Oh let him ask, Old Sora here is gonna be family soon enough,” Masato said, then laughed.

“Like hell he is! I object!!” Shoji shouted.

“Oh give it a rest, Shoji,” Hiroto said to his son.

“You give it a damn rest!” he said.

“How dare you talk to your dad like that.”

“Just you wait, fiancé,” Shoji warned.

“Or what?” Midori asked with a smile.

Than everyone laughed.

“Laugh it up!” he said.

Than someone came out from behind Sora and scared the bejesus out of him.

“Mitsuki!!!” the boy said excitedly.

“Ahhh!!” Sora screamed scared.

“Oh hi, Naruto!” Mitsuki said.

“Naruto, what did we say about scary people?” Haruna asked the boy.

“Sorry mom,” he said.

“This is Haruna’s son, Naruto,” Mitsuki told Sora.

Naruto looked at Sora. “Is this him?”

“Yeah, this is my fiancé,” Mitsuki said.

“Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Sora.”

“Sora? Cool,” Naruto said, “like off of Kingdom Hearts. I hope you become the best heroic man for your future wife, Mitsuki here!”

“Like hell!” Shoji shouted.

“Mother’s permission is all that we need. You know how things work in this family,” Noriko said.

“Come on, Granny. You really gonna go through with this?” Shoji asked.

“Of course,” she said, “Sora will make a wonderful addition to the family. I have no doubt about it. These eyes of mine have never deceived me. The Jinnouchi clan have no time for meteocre men, not while there are still family in town to protect.”

“You tell em, ma,” Masato said. “We Jinnouchi have to be as sharp and tough as nails! If you’re a man, you have to be able to protect your home and family! We played an important part in Takeda’s army! This was the Battle of Ueda!”

“Here he goes again,” Nami said.

“Tokugawa had his 7,000 elite troops, and Senzo-sama had to face him with only 2,000 of his own troops!!”

“Thus began the Second Ueda War!” Makato called out.

“Bingo, we have a winner!” Masato said.

Everyone cheered.

Later, when they were done eating, Kenta and Hanna went off on a date, Celty went to bed (or so they thought), and Mitsuki and the kids (except the baby Saburo) were taking a bath.

Sora was in the hallway talking to Kenta on his cellphone before Kenta went back on his date with Hana.

“Stupid rock, paper, scissors, I knew I should have cheated. You get to be her boyfriend, man. But at least, I get to be with her best friend and not to mention we have lie to them too. I am so jealous of you,” Kenta said.

“There’s nothing to be jealous about, it’s just a job and we’ll tell everyone we just broke up, anyway,” Sora said.

“But still,” he said. “You having at least? I know I am.”

“I don’t know,” Sora said, “I don’t do well with strangers.”

“Don’t be such a party pooper, seriously dude,” he said. “You get to sleep in bed with the most popular girl that ever went to our school. Hey, you two are still playing boyfriend and girlfriend, right? You two should get nice and cuddly.”

“What?! Cuddly? What are you talking about?”

“Ha. Good luck, man. Later,” he said, as he hung on up.

“Man. He doesn’t care about other people’s problems one bit,” Sora said to himself. “Where am I?”

He was looking over the place to find the room he was looking for.

“Wow, this place is big,” he said to himself.

Sora saw light coming from a room, so he went to check it out. It had an old teenager in there doing something on the computer and that’s where the light was coming from. He wore headphones and was listening to some kind of music, I think.

Without even making any noises, he somehow knew that Sora was there.

“You need something?” he asked.

“Hey, Haruto right? I’m Sora and I’m kind of lost.”

“The bathroom’s back there to the right,” he said.

“Oh thanks,” Sora said. “How come your back way over here?”

But he just ignored Sora and went back to doing what he was doing on the laptop.

Sora found the bathroom and saw Shizuka running away naked in the hall.

“Mommy,” she called out to.

“Shizuka, get back here. You’re all wet, silly buns,” Mitsuki said.

She noticed Sora and she hid herself.

“Whoa! I’m sorry! I wasn’t looking! Honest,” Sora said.

“I’m all done. The shower or tub’s all yours,” she said.

“Uh, no thanks. I’m good, still clean.”

But he ended up going to take a bath anyway.

“Mitsuki just soaked in this very water,” Sora said to himself.

But that was until Jiro and Ichiro’s heads popped out from under the water.

“I win!” Ichiro said.

“You big cheater, it was a tie.”

Sora got up and closed the door to let them have that bathtub, than he heard a shower going on beind a door. He slided it open and saw a man in a lab coat peeking at Celty taking a shower, he realized it was—

“Whoa, Shinra!”

“Sora!”

Celty heard them both, she grabbed her PDA and said. ‘STOP PEEKING!!’

She kicked them both out at the same time and slammed the door shut. She used her powers to keep the door good and tight.

After Sora took a shower, he and Shinra talked while walking to the eating room.

“So when did you get here, Shinra?” Sora asked.

“I got here ten minutes before peeking on Celty,” he said.

“I see.”

“Come here, Hachi. It’s me, don’t you remember me?” a voice said.

The adults were looking at a man petting the Akita dog, Hachi.

“Why are you here?” Masato asked the man.

“It’s my home, how’s that for starters?” the man said.

“Like hell it is, you thief,” Noriko said.

“Haha. Still as unpleasant as ever, Aunt Noriko. You haven’t changed a bit,” he said.

“Oh you’re a fine one to talk. Sneaking back here 10 years later like nothing every happened. What’s wrong with you?!” Makato asked.

“The gangs all here, why?”

“We’re throwing a birthday party on Monday,” Hiroto answered.

“Really. For who?”

Then he turned to Granny, realizing it was going to be her birthday.

She called the man by his name. “Daisuke.”

“Daisuke?” both Sora and Shinra wondered to themselves who this man is.

“Hey, the hag. I thought you were dead,” he said.

“Same for you. I thought you died in the streets or at least the slums for that matter years ago,” she said.

“You’ll hit a hundred more easily before you crock,” he said.

“Maybe so,” she said. “Have you eaten yet?”

“I don’t need any of your food,” he said. “This Go-Japan stinks, all street and all narrow, and there’s too damn many of us.”

He drank a glass of beer and said. “But the beer’s good at least.”

Than Mitsuki came in behind Sora and was surprised to see this man.

“Daisuke?” Mitsuki asked.

Than a smile came on her face, “Uncle Daisuke!”

“Mitsuki, is that you?” he asked.

She ran up to him and gave him a hug that pushed him on the ground while he was sitting.

“Oh my gosh, you’re back!” she said happy and laughing.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Mitsuki, you get away from him!” Noriko ordered.

“Huh? Why, it’s Uncle Daisuke,” she said.

The ladies, except Granny and Mitsuki were talking in the kitchen.

“Has it really been ten years?” Nami asked.

“Time sure does fly by,” Noriko said.

“So is Daisuke, anyway?” Mami asked.

“Oh that’s right, you never would have met him,” Yumi said.

“Trust me, it’s a long story,” Midori said.

“Why bother? My mother adopted him,” Noriko said.

“Yeah, because he’s great-grandfather’s illegitimate son,” Nami said.

“Huh?” Mami said.

“That ungrateful punk had the nerve to take what little property Granny had to go chasing off to America with the money. America, can you believe it?! Geez, who does that?” Haruna said.

“That kind of stuff happened a lot back then,” Noriko said.

Daisuke and Mitsuki were playing the card game called, ‘Koi Koi,’ while Sora was trying to learn the rules.

“Really? You haven’t gotten married yet?” Mitsuki asked. “Than do you have a girl-friend?”

“Quit the dumb questions,” he said.

“That’s great. I want to visit more places in America. Hey, take me to the Disney Resorts. First, the one in California and then the one in Florida and in between I could just crash at your place. So how do I get in touch with you?”

“Win and I’ll tell,” he said.

“Aw. No fare,” she said.

“That’s what makes it fun,” he said, “but if you still win I’ll take you all over the world if you want?”

“What? Really?” she asked happily. “So, will you stay too?”

“Maybe if you win,” he said.

“Alright, here goes nothing. Haha. Dry three bright, read them and weep.”

“Are you taking the points?”

“Not yet, Koi-Koi, uncle.”

“Alright, my turn then. Bam. Dry four—dry four brights?”

“Huh? Of course not. Oh, that’s a shame.”

“Three junk cards.”

“Huh? Koi-Koi, right?”

“Fraid not.”

“How’d you do that?”

“Haha. What can I say? Well, I think I’m gonna call it a night.”

“Oh, come on. One more game.”

“I believe in quitting while you’re ahead. That’s my style, anyway. You’re turn.”

“Ah, I’m still learning the rules,” Sora said.

“Hey, how long are you here for?” she asked Daisuke while getting up and going with him.

“Don’t know.”

“You could just stay. Yeah, what do ya think?”

After they left, Sora was alone in the room, then a few minutes later at 8:00 p.m. Masato called to everyone from outside in the grassy fields shouting and yelling. “Hey! Get ready everyone! We’re going to start the fireworks, now!”

When they started the fireworks, it was beautiful. Sora remained where he was at while the others were outside sitting on the ground, or in chairs. It lasted, until it was 9:00 p.m.

“Happy Fourth of July Day!!” everyone outside shouted, then they all cheered.

Later that night, Sora went to the kitchen to thank the ladies for the meal and everything.

“Excuse me,” Sora said. “Thank you all for everything today. I’m going to head off to bed, so good night everyone.”

“Wow, you’re so polite,” Nami said.

“So admirate,” Haruna said.

Then he left and could hear them talking.

“Still, you think it’s odd that he didn’t drink?” Nami asked.

“That’s a good thing, right?” Haruna said.

“Oh stop it, it doesn’t matter if he drinked or not,” Noriko said.

Sora went to the room they gave him to sleep in. It was one of those sleeping on the floor beds called ‘futons,’ Japanese people and maybe even Chinese people sleep in.

Sora went on the ZOLLAR’s chatroom before going to sleep, but none of his chatroom buddies came on, I guess it was because time was different here and in America. So Sora just got off and tried to sleep, but he was having trouble sleeping.

“What am I doing here?” Sora asked himself.

Then in just a few seconds, his phone made a weird ring tone. He opened it up and on the screen he got a Zollar mail, then it had numbers.

He got his notebook and copied the numbers down and begun to try and solve it. It took him from 12:45 p.m. to 3:40 a.m. to finish it and type in the answer.

“I solved it,” he said.

He typed in the answer, then it said ‘thank you’ and it counted down from three, then it did a loud pop sound and that’s what made him jump and drop his phone.

“Ah!”

It had a crazy evil smiley face on the screen and giggled a bit. Sora just turned it off and went to bed to get some sleep.

“What the heck was that all about anyway?” he asked himself before shutting his eyes.

While he was still sleeping the morning when everyone was up, two kids jumped on top of him.

“Wake up!” they said.

Sora woke to see it was Jiro and Ichiro trying to wake him up.

“Huh?” Sora said.

“Out of bed, criminal,” Jiro ordered.

“Get up!” they said.

Sora got up and they dragged him by the hand to get to the living room to watch the news on the TV.

“Let’s go! Come on! Move it, big guy! Come on!” they said dragging him.

“Wait! I just wanna sleep!” he said.

“Quiet, you see. It is too his face,” Ichiro said.

“No doubt about it. This is him, alright,” Jiro said.

“Huh?” Sora said.

“—the master mind behind this attack,” said a man on TV.

“He looks young does he? A college student perhaps?” a second man asked. “Maybe, even a high schooler.”

There was a picture of Sora on TV. He couldn’t believe.

“Wait, that picture,” Sora said. “It’s me.”

Only his eyes were covered up and could not be seen.

“Hard to believe this baby faced boy hacked into the land of ZOLLAR’s maintenance server. He turned the whole place on its head in just one night. Experts are saying that system repairs will take some time,” the first man said.

“Probably just a prank,” a third man said, “but I won’t be able to check my email though.”

“But ZOLLARS is bubukids now. Its users are common of that of cellphones, right?” the first man said.

“Indeed, Japanese and American society depends on ZOLLARS access from shopping and online chatting to business operations. Maybe it is just a prank, but they’re going to throw the book at this kid none the less,” the second man said.

“Throw the book at him?” Jiro asked.

“It means he’s busted,” Ichiro answered.

They laughed.

“OK, breakfast is ready,” Yumi said passing by.

Sora grabbed the remote off the small table and turned off the TV.

“Huh?” they said.

“Hey, give me that,” Jiro said snatching the remote from him and turning the TV back on. “There.”

“No wait!” Sora said.

“Oh no, you don’t,” he said.

Sora tried chasing them around the table to get the remote from them, but he couldn’t.

“Please, I didn’t do it! Stop running already! Wait, nobody look!”

Then he saw the plug and unplugged the TV.

“Huh?” they said.

“The TV went out,” Ichiro said.

“How did that happen?” Jiro said.

Then Sora got away from the kids to try out his phone to get on the ZOLLARS.

“I’m a wanted criminal?! Me?! How in the world did this even happen?!!” I whispered talked to myself.

“Hey, breakfast!” Midori called out.

Sora hid when he heard her.

“This has to be some kind of mistake,” Sora said.

Sora already had his name on the log in of the homepage of the ZOLLARS. He just needed to type in the password, but it just said he was unable to log in and was already on. He did it a second time, but no luck.

“What the?” Sora said.

Then he remembered Haruto.

“Where was that kid?” he asked himself. “Oh man. Huh?”

He spotted Haruto’s room and ran to it and he was still in there.

“There you are!” Sora said.

“Did you do this?” he asked.

“Let me use your computer now!” Sora ordered.

“That was rude. Try asking nicely, dude,” he said.

Sora calmed himself down a bit by inhaling and exhaling one time. “Can I please borrow your computer for a second now, please?”

He moved the computer towards him.

“Thanks a lot,” Sora said.

He typed in his username and password again, but it didn’t work a first or second time again.

“No way,” Sora said.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Someone stole my account to hack into ZOLLARS.”

“I see, you were framed than, right?”

“Right.”

“Don’t try calling Customer Service, their busy.”

Then someone touched Sora on the shoulder.

He closed his eyes and screamed that he also screamed like a girl.

“Come down, dude! You want people to hear you?” Haruto said. “It’s just Celty, jeez man.”

“Celty, I swear I didn’t do this,” Sora said.

‘I know, I over heard.’

“Sora,” said a woman’s voice.

“Yeah?” he asked realizing it was Haruto’s mom, Haruka.

“You have a phone call. It’s Kenta from last night,” she said.

Sora picked up the phone and thanked her for it, then he answered it. “Hello?”

“Please tell me you didn’t break the Internet?” Kenta asked.

“Of course not.”

“Didn’t think so. It’s too stupid to be you.”

“Whatever, if you know it wasn’t me, then help me out.”

“ I can’t. None of our admin passwords work anymore. We’ve been exiled.”

“Wasn’t our security system like the best in the world?!”

“Last night, this strange weird email message popped up all over ZOLLARS.”

“Whad it say?”

“Zollar’s 2056 digit security algorithm. It’s suppose to be impossible to decrypt, but someone punched through it in a single night.”

“Wait a minute, 2056? What was the first number?”

“Eight.”

Then he realized that it was him who did it.

“I . . . I did it. It was me after all,” Sora said.

“Excuse me?!”

“I just thought it was another one of those random math problems.”

“So you just went and solved it?! Idiot!”

“I’m sorry.”

“No way,” both Haruto and Celty said in surprise.

“Anyway, I got you a guest avatar on that phone of yours,” Kenta said. “No privileges, but it’s better than nothing. Use it to find out what’s going on, okay?”

“You’re kidding me, right? I’m a cat? A blue cat that looks like Happy off of Fairy Tail?”

“Greetings citizens of Zollars,” said a male voice, “do to unforeseen secure stances many of our services are off line. We apologize for the technical difficulties and will get on it as soon as possible.”

“Sora, there he is!” Kenta said.

“Hey . . . um . . . pardon me. C-Could you stop using my avatar to cause trouble?”

The avatar turned around and had an evil smile and laughed.

“This guy stole my Zollars account! I’m a victim of identity fraud!” Sora said.

All the avatars around the avatar had the same evil smile and laugh as he did when they all turned around to face Sora.

“Who is this maniac? You can’t just do whatever you want just because you’re online! There are rules, you know!!”

He flew up to Sora and punched him in the face.

“Battle mode?! But this a no fighting area,” Kenta said. “This place has just been reset for all the avatars.”

“Tell me like a normal person would!” Sora said.

“ZOLLARS just turned into one giant cage match! Is that normal enough for you, Sora?! Now run!”

“Hey, let’s talk this over! Let’s talk this over!” Sora said holding his hand up in a stop as the imposter was walking slowly up to him.

The imposter jumped up in the air and its feet landed on Sora’s cat-like face, then it started jumping and punching on Sora’s face.

“Move, dummy!” Haruto said to Sora. “He’s killing ya like a giant punching bag! Get out of the way!”

Now Haruto was taking over with his own avatar.

The imposter was kicked in the face by Haruto’s avatar out of nowhere. The imposter crashed to the ZOLLAR building, then while there was smoke surrounding the imposter, Haruto kicked him in the face again away from the building. As the dust cleared up really fast, Sora and Kenta couldn’t believe their eyes. It was the King himself.

“That’s . . .” Kenta said. “Kind Haruto!”

“All right!!” said the comments of every avatars around the world.

The imposter’s appearance has changed before he got up and started to fly away with King Haruto following him in the air.

“Quick! He’s getting away!” Sora shouted.

‘Stay here, you guys! I’ll be right back! I have an idea!’ Celty said before rushing off.

“Wait! Celty!” Sora said.

Too late, Celty was already gone.

Celty rushed off to Naruto’s room to ask him something, I know you’re all going to love.

Celty appeared in front of Naruto’s front doorway room in a flash.

‘Naruto, I need your help!’

“Celty, are you seeing this?” Naruto asked pointing at the picture of Sora on the news of his computer screen.

‘No time for that now! Help me out!’

“OK, but for what?”

‘I need you to use your machine to put me inside of ZOLLAR.’

“Alright!” he said. “Thought you’d never ask. Which one you’d like? Posses your avatar-self or put yourself in there?”

‘Avatar-self.’

“You got it.”

“There’s no way I’m letting you go in on your own,” said a man’s voice from behind Celty by the doorway.

‘Huh? Shizuo?’

“Hey Naruto, put myself inside there,” he ordered him. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but something tells me you need to get inside ZOLLAR to stop the criminal. Time for battle, huh?”

Back in Haruto’s room after Celty left, Haruto was chasing the imposter.

“I can’t believe it, you’re—

“Stop talking, I’m trying to concentrate,” Haruto said to Sora.

Haruto followed the criminal back to the ground and he finally got a hold of the imposter. He tightened his arm around the criminal’s neck.

“You got him now,” Sora said.

“This guy is nothing.”

Then Jiro and Ichiro spotted Sora in Haruto’s room as they were passing by.

“There he is!” Jiro said. “Sir, the criminal’s been spotted!”

“Good work, cadet,” Ichiro said.

“You’re going to jail!” they both said at the same time as they ran at Sora to tackle him down.

“Huh?” he said turning around before they jumped on him to hold him down. “No stop, I’m innocent! I can prove it!”

“Cut it out!” Haruto told the kids.

The imposter got out of King Haruto’s grip and ran for Kenta. Sora held the kids down before seeing that in alarm.

“Kenta, get away from there!!”

“Whoa, whoa! What the hell!” Kenta said in alarm doing just that.

But as it turned out, it went for the avatar by Kenta and not him instead.

The little avatar tried her best to get away from it, but it just ate her, then went for a guy’s avatar and ate him too.

Every avatar around Haruto and the man-eating avatar, stepped a few feet away from the two.

Then the imposter evolved into something else.

“That guy---” Ichiro said.

“—got big,” Jiro said.

Then Sora noticed a picture of his avatar on the disc thing behind the evolved avatar.

“Hey, that’s my icon!” Sora said.

Then the avatar and King Haruto started to fight. Haruto started having a hard time with this guy.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it,” he said in frustration.

This evolved avatar was stronger and faster than Haruto.

“Who are you?” Haruto asked.

“Hey, cool game,” Ichiro said.

“Yeah, I wanna play it,” Jiro said.

“Don’t touch anything!” Haruto yelled pushing them out of the way.

“I’m telling,” Jiro said.

Haruto realized his avatar was getting beat up, no thanks to the kids. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere, King Haruto . . . lost.

“K.O.!!” a man’s voice said. “Challenger wins!!”

The avatar was about to steal Haruto’s avatar, until Shizuo showed up out of nowhere and punched the avatar in the face but it did not go down. Then two more avatars showed up and stood by King Haruto’s side as he laid down unconscious.

“Whoa! Is that Shizuo?!”

“Yeah, and I’m Naruto!” the fox avatar said. “We met last night, remember?”

“Oh yeah, your that kid.”

“And I’m Celty,” said the headless knight.

“What?!”

Shizuo jumped away from the avatar and stood with his friends, but it wasn’t over just yet, two avatars that this avatar stolen had came out of his disc and they were fighting types.

“Oh man, this is so like Summer Wars,” Sora said.

The kids just watched the show.

Celty fought the samurai avatar, Naruto fought the guerrilla avatar, while Shizuo fought the avatar.

Celty easily defeated her opponent and when the opponent was defeated, it went back into the avatar’s disc.

Naruto was having a hard time with the guerrilla, so Celty came in to help before he was defeated. Celty easily nocked the guerilla out with her scythe, then Shizuo suddenly appeared and punched the unconscious avatar in the face and it went flying and crashing to a wall. So the guerrilla avatar was put back into the avatar’s disc after that attack. The avatar looked at Celty, Shizuo, and the defeated Naruto.

Naruto looked at the avatar and shouted before falling unconscious. “Y . . . you . . . We won’t forget this . . .!!”

The avatar started charging at Celty and Shizuo, without his feet on the ground.

“Come on, come on,” Haruto trying to get his avatar up to help, but couldn’t.

Celty wrapped her, Shizuo, and the unconscious Naruto in a black sphere made from her shadows and when it faded away, Celty, Shizuo, and Naruto were gone.

That was when Sora started to get the kids out of the room.

“Okay, kids time to go,” he said.

“Hey, let me go! You’re a criminal, and yet--” Ichiro said.

“Let me play the game too--!!” Jiro said.

The avatar was ready to steal Haruto’s avatar, but Sora ran to King Haruto’s aid and stood there. Sora gave the avatar a shocked expression pointing to the left direction. The avatar looked in that direction, Sora grabbed, pulled, ran with the unconscious King Haruto and managed to escape. The avatar didn’t bother to go on after them, so he just flew away.

Sora was keeping the door closed, while he used the phone to use his quest avatar to get King Haruto out of there. The kids were wanting back in, but that was never gonna happen.

“Oh, thank god,” Sora said. “That was close. He probably would have eaten your avatar too.”

Haruto was silence.

Outside somewhere around the house, Mitsuki and a few of the family was practicing a happy birthday sing-a-long for Granny Eska.

“Here we go. One, two. . .” Mitsuki said.

Then they started singing.

“Uncle Daisuke, come and sing,” Mitsuki called out to him, while everyone still sung.

“I’ll pass,” he said.

“Just forget about him,” Nami told Mitsuki.

Daisuke was reading something on his phone, until he was approached by Yumiko.

“Uncle?” she said.

“Huh?”

“What’cha looking at?”

So he lied. “Ladies in hot swimsuits.”

“What was your job in America?”

“Ninja.”

“Whoa really?”

He showed her his phone, but looked away and covered her eyes thinking it really was what he said it was, but it wasn’t. Just the words he was reading.

Back at Haruto’s room, after the kids left. Celty, Shizuo, and Naruto showed up to see if Sora and Haruto were okay, then Kenta finally made it there a few minutes after Celty’s group came. Kenta told them, Hana was with the family when Sora asked.

“I think I’ve figured out who’s behind all of this, but it ain’t human,” Kenta told everyone.

“It isn’t human, than what is it?” Sora asked.

“A.I., you know artificial intelligence. Apparently, someone was programming an A.I. designed for hacking into a Robotics’ Club in Pittsburgh and its somehow got out,” Kenta said looking up the thing on his laptop.

“It got out?” Sora asked.

‘What do you mean it got out? How could it have escaped?’ Celty asked.

“It just did,” Kenta said. “The best part, it’s called ‘Kill Machine.’”

“Kill Machine?” Sora said. “Oh god, just like Love Machine, but with the word ‘kill’ in it. Oh I was right, this is so like the Summer War anime movie indeed.”

The group stood silence after that.

The family sat in the eating table in shock as they saw Sora’s face on TV.

“Jeez, I wish this kid would give us a break already,” a man’s voice on the news said.

“You can say that again, I paid too much for this cellphone not to work,” a woman’s voice said on the news.

The rest of the family that practiced the birthday singing came inside chatting.

“If Ryo’s team makes it to the Nationals, let’s go to the hot springs,” Midori said. “My treat, ladies.”

“Sounds good to me,” said all three (Nami, Yumi, and Haruka).

Mitsuki ran to the table in shock of seeing Sora’s face on TV.

“Wait, is that--” Nami said.

Haruna and Shoji came back with news on Sora.

“Mitsuki! Your boyfriend’s a con artist!” Haruna said.

“Dump that guy, this instant!” Shoji ordered.

“Sora’s not from an old family, his dad’s just some random sells man!” Haruna said. “I checked into the ZOLLARS registry! Oh and all of that stuff about being a college teacher you told us was a lie! According to the registry, he’s one year younger than you are!”

“We got a fax down at the police station, look!” Shoji said showing a picture of Sora.

“And he’s just a junior in college in Ohio in America!” Haruna said. “And he’s never studied abroad! He probably couldn’t even find cities of China on the map!”

“I thought. . .” Mitsuki said. “Granny?”

“—and now for our next news story,” a man said on the news.

“The NASA asteroid probe failed to release its capsule as planned by its designers,” the second man said on the news.

“Oh and I found out that that Kenta fella isn’t from Frnace! He’s a friend to you and Sora in America at the same college, you three go to!” Haruna said.

Hana couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What? That can’t be.”

Back in Haruto’s room, there were comments on King Haruto.

“Whoa, these comments are brutal,” Sora said, “but don’t worry it’s just a game.”

“KING HARUTO, KING OF STUPIDS!!”

“YOU BETRAYED US, HARUTO!”

“It’s not a game. It’s a sport,” Haruto said.

“Huh?” Sora asked.

“Games are for people who don’t care enough,” Haruto said. “In sports you compete to win.”

“Oh, I see!”

“But it’s different!” Haruto said.

“Different how?”

“It loves games just like Love Machine, I can feel it. It likes to play.”

“Likes to play like Love Machine off of Summer Wars, huh? Which means he—

Sora was cut off when he heard someone running this way in the hall.

Shoji shouted at him. “Haha! Got ya!”

The whole family tried to get in at the same time, but they all fell down on top of one another and trying to get back up and they were too noisy that the group could hardly make out what they were all saying.

“Cat’s out of the bag,” Mitsuki said.

“I told you it wasn’t gonna work!!” Sora and Celty said at the same time. “And we told you someone would find out!!”

They were in the room close to the dining room (also known as the eating room too). The TV has the baseball game on with Midori’s son Ryo on. She was the only one watching TV at the table, while the others stared at Sora, Mitsuki, and Kenta in the other room. The only ones not in both rooms were Haruto, Naruto, and of course Daisuke.

Sora, Mitsuki, and Kenta was kneeling in front of Noriko, while the others sat in the dining room behind them. Shoji sat on their left, Nami stood by their right, Eska sat far behind them on their right, while Celty, Shinra, Shizuo, Haruna, and Hana stood behind them.

Ryo said on TV. “Yeah, the team at the other school are no pushovers, you know. But I honestly think when the dust clears we’ll be the champs. Ueda High School, yeah!”

The team gathered around him and they all cheered.

Midori cheered too, but it ended soon as she saw no one else was cheering at the table or watching TV. “Yeah! Huh?”

“Why on earth, would the both of you lie to us?” Noriko asked Sora and Kenta.

“And what were you thinking?” Noriko asked Mitsuki. “Granny likes being lied too?”

Mitsuki just shook her head no, none of the three friends didn’t even bother to look at Noriko.

“I had my doubts about these tricksters the moment they walked through the door,” Haruna said.

“Kenta, please tell me this isn’t true,” Hana asked sadly.

He said nothing.

“Though we do have a college teacher from an old family who’s studied in America and traveled the whole world, if that’s what you’re looking for?” Nami said.

“Daisuke has all of those qualities,” Noriko said.

“Your right, but why Mitsuki?” Haruna asked standing by Nami’s side now.

“Hold on, wasn’t Mitsuki in love with--” Nami said.

Then Nami and Haruna gasped in realization as Mitsuki’s whole face started to blush in embarrassment.

“She was always fond of Daisuke,” Noriko said.

“And she had her love fortune told when she was in kindergarten and Pre-K,” Nami said.

Haruna said, “She even wrote that for her essay for school, remember? ‘Me & Daisuke.’”

Sora and Kenta couldn’t hold in their laughter anymore, so they burst out in laughter, as Mitsuki spoken out.

“NO!!” Mitsuki shouted embarrassed. “Just stop it, I’m begging you!”

“At least we got all of that figured out,” Haruna said.

Shoji got up in frustration. “Oh focus, women! What’s important is that this guy’s a cyber criminal!”

“I’m not!” Sora said.

“He’s right,” said Haruna.

“He can’t stay here after what his done,” Noriko said.

“Well you’re a cop, aren’t you?” Nami asked him. “Just arrest him problem solved.”

“Oh, right,” said Shoji.

“And while you’re at it, arrest Kenta too,” Hana said.

“Huh?” Kenta said.

“Kenta?” both Noriko and Haruna asked her.

“What for?” Nami asked Hana.

“Just in case, he’s an accomplice,” Hana said.

“What?” Kenta said.

“Good point,” Shoji said.

‘Now hold on their innocent,’ Celty said talking about Sora and Kenta.

“Oh enough!” Shoji said to everyone.

Shoji handcuffed the both of them. “Checkmate!”

“Whoa,” Ichiro said.

“Take them to jail,” Jiro said.

“Hey, don’t be rude,” Yumi and Midori said at the same time.

“The time is now, 12:30 p.m.” Shoji said. “The cause of arrest . . . well . . . because . . .”

“Tell me, Sora, was that you on TV?” Eska asked before taking a drink of tea. “I don’t know what load of crap they were talking about on the news just now, but was that really you on the photograph just now?”

“I swear, I didn’t do it!” Sora complained.

“Yeah, right, now come on!” Shoji shouted.

“Wait, before we leave there’s something I need to say before he takes and drags us away,” Sora said scooting over to Granny Eska.

“What?!” Shoji said.

“Be quiet!” Granny ordered Shoji to hear what Sora had to say. “Go on, Sora.”

“I just wanted to thank you for such a good, great, and wonderful time,” Sora said. “You see my father had to relocate for his job and mom’s job keeps her busy too. I hardly ever get to see them anymore, especially on holidays like Christmas and Summer Break. Mostly I’m the only one home, sometimes it’s just me and Kenta’s family but after that I’m always alone. Eating dinner with you all like a real family, I never had a chance to do stuff like that before. I really liked it, honest.”

Granny closed her eyes and smiled. “I understand.”

“Anyway, thank you for having me and Kenta,” he said bowing his head to her.

He got up and said. “Well everyone, we’re leaving now. Glad to have met you,” he said bowing his head to them.

“Glad to have met you too,” everyone said.

Shoji putted Sora in the front seat in his car and Kenta in the back. The wheel was on the right. When Shoji got in, he started the car and was driving out of there.

Sora turned to see the Jinnouchi mansion one last time, until Mitsuki, Celty, Shizuo, and Shinra came running after them, trying their best to follow them.

Sora gasped, “Mitsuki? Guys?” he said. “Mitsuki, Celty, Shinra, Shizuo, I’m soryy!” he called out to them.

Shoji slapped him.

“Ow!”

Mitsuki watched as the car left with Celty, Shinra, and Shizuo standing right behind her watching too.

Celty touched her shoulders and said, ‘Don’t worry about a thing, Mitsuki. He’ll come back.’

Then they looked back to where the car left.

As for Kill Machine, he was up to no good in the world of Zollars.

He used some type of key to unlock something to give him access to. . .well, everything. The key went half way into the ‘O’ of the word Zollar, then he started pulling strings, throwing a ball into other balls like it was a game of marbles, changing traffics, and all kinds of things to create more errors, chaos, destruction, and panic in the real world.

Midori and the rest of the kids were watching her son playing his baseball game. “Yeah Ryo! You can do it, baby! Give mama a no hitter!”

But just when it was about to show her son making his pitch, the news popped up.

“Oh enough of the stupid probe already!” Midori said.

“Midori,” Noriko said.

“Yeah?”

“We’re going to have lots of relatives today. Come and help out. Baseball can wait.”

“OK.”

Back to Sora, Kenta, and Shoji, they just stopped in traffic at a red light.

“To bad you don’t have a siren on this thing,” Sora said.

“Shut up!” Shoji yelled.

“Yes sir.”

Shoji taped his fingers on the wheel impatiently and started grumbling and growling. “Hey!”

“Yes?!” both Sora and Kenta asked.

“It’s green, right?! So why are we just sitting here?!”

“I don’t know!” they said.

Back at the Jinnouchi Mansion, the family is having problems trying to get relatives here for Granny’s birthday party on Monday.

“Huh, you won’t be here?” Noriko asked Mitsuki’s mom, Sachiko on the phone. “Why?”

“Because my GPS is broken. I’m somewhere in Saitama, but it keeps saying I’m in Hokkaido,” she said, “and its wall to wall traffic. So I’m not even so sure if I’ll be able to make it today.”

“Her birthday is the day after tomorrow, there must be some way you can get here,” Noriko said.

“Don’t freak out,” Sachiko said. “My husband will take the next bullet train tonight just let Mitsuki know for me.”

When Noriko called Sachiko’s husband Taro, and guess what?

“Sorry, but I won’t be able to leave Tokyo today,” he said.

“You too?! Why not?!”

“Someone or something’s been raising the pressure in the water bay systems. If we don’t get this fix soon, all the underground cast and power lines will be in danger too,” he said. “I swear I’ll be on the bullet train by tomorrow morning. Be sure to tell Mitsuki for me, okay?”

“You better,” Noriko said. “We’ve been planning this for ages. This is no time to let work interfere.”

The whole family called their loves and none of them could come because of the problem with Zollars, no thanks to Kill Machine.

“You can’t come home?” Yumi asked her husband on the phone. “What’s up?”

“All the elderly keep pushing their emergency alert buttons and when we get here their all fine,” Takeo said.

“What, you too?” Mami said on the phone to her husband.

“We responded to a few alarms, when we got here just now we couldn’t find anything on fire,” Isamu said. “It’s been like that all morning long.”

“Wait, weren’t you on the night shift?” Midori asked her husband on the phone.

“Yeah, but calls keep coming in non-stop. Never got the chance to clock out yet,” Hiroki said. “But I bet this one’s as bogus as the rest of them.”

“My boat docked at the wrong port, but how?” Masato asked the person on the phone.

“Can’t you make it somehow, Haruto’s waiting,” Haruka asked her husband on the phone.

“Nature called?” Makato asked the person on the phone. “Oh say no more than, don’t you worry about me.”

“Yeah,” Nami said on the phone. “Okay, I’ll tell Aunt Noriko. Hey, Uncle—Wait, what the. . .”

“Why can’t anybody make it here?!” Noriko said. “What is going on?!”

Back to Sora, Kenta, and Shoji, they were still stuck in traffic.

“Damn, this is bullshit!” Shoji yelled. “My lunch break’s about to end!”

Then all of a sudden Clety and Takeru came there on their motorcycles. Mitsuki sat behind Takeru, and Shizuo sat behind Celty.

“Turn around, it’s jammed for over 60 kilometers,” Mitsuki said.

Shoji parked his car in the grassy field and left it there, while he and Sora went with the others back to the house.

“The only reason I’m doing this is because Mitsuki asked me too, alright?” Shoji said to Sora while freeing him from his handcuffs.

“Why is all of this happening?” Mitsuki asked.

“It might be terrorism,” Takeru said while listening to the news on some radio device.

“Huh?” Mitsuki asked.

When they got back, Nami welcomed them back, but then realized Sora and Kenta was back too.

“Welcome back,” she said. “Wait a minute, what are you doing back here?”

“Traffic was really full and chaotic,” Sora answered.

“And bad,” Kenta replied.

When they got inside, Yumi and Mami noticed them back too.

“Did ya’ll forget something?” Yumi asked them.

“No, not really,” Sora said as he walked away to get back to Haruto’s room.

“Just bad traffic problems,” Kenta said going with Sora.

In another room there was Noriko, Masato, and Makato but they didn’t notice Sora and Kenta at all.

“Listen, just tell the other fishermen to unplug all the GPS systems,” Masato told someone on the phone before hanging up.

“What about the ladders performance the others were going to do?” Noriko asked.

“I think they’ll have to take a rain check.” Masato said.

“I ordered the right party buns for everyone,” she said.

“Thank god, they won’t get here. Problem solved,” Makato said.

“Bite your tongue!” she said. “Some of us have been working real hard to getting ready, while others go lay a bout and read the paper!”

Sora and Kenta managed to get to Haruto’s room without more of the family spotting them. This time Shoji and Shinra was present in the group. Mikado, Anri, and Masaomi’s faces appeared on Haruto’s computer to be present in the group too. Celty explained that she contacted the three about what was going on here (in case of emergency) and so they wanted to be part of the group and help out in any way they can and they were grateful for that. They needed all the people and help that they could get their hands on.

“Kill Machine is totally behind all of this,” Kenta said. “With that password, it can take on as many accounts it wants.”

“Accounts?” Mitsuki asked.

“People’s online accounts in Zollars,” Haruto answered.

“Seriously,” Masaomi asked, “it wants accounts?”

“Not to mention, eating or stealing accounts gives it a power boost,” Mikado said.

“But why and why ZOLLARS too?” Anri asked.

“Accounts have the same power as their real world users,” Kenta said. “Steal an account from the water department and you control the water. Steal an account from the train station and you control the train. People rely on ZOLLARS to get things done.”

“Yeah, because they thought that Zollars would be safe,” Haruto said.

“Exactly,” Kenta said, “or say it gets hands on the President’s account and fires nuclear weapons.”

“What?” everyone said.

“This is all my fault, I did this,” Sora said covering his face in shame.

“Than, I am so re-arresting you!” Shoji yelled at him.

Granny and Shizuka were watching the news and everything was not looking good out there.

“What a mess, it’s more like a war,” Granny said.

“What’s a war?” Shizuka asked.

“People are gonna die if we sit around doing nothing,” Granny answered before leaving the room.

Granny was calling everyone she knew to help fix the problem, in other words, motivating everyone.

“Ambulance Six,” Takeo said answering the call. “Huh? Granny, how’d you get this number?!”

“Takeo, get out there and save as many elderly civilians as you can, got it?” she said.

“Don’t lose heart, Isamu,” she said. “Show the world your own Jinnouchi spirit!”

“This is a war, Hiroki, and you better believe I’m going to fight my part in it!”

“This is a what?” he asked, but she hung up before answering his question. “Huh?”

Granny was now talking to some old friends or colleagues the rest of the time to respond to this whole mess.

The group watched in amaze during half of the time seeing what she was doing.

“The one she’s talking to on the phone right now named Obata Jr., he’s my police commissioner,” Shoji said.

“Whoa,” Mitsuki said.

“I get it now,” Sora said. “Your Granny is inspiring and motivating everyone.”

Sora smiled in amazement at Granny, while she was talking on the phone.

The group went back to Haruto’s room to do something about the Kill Machine problem in ZOLLARS.

“All the Zollar engineers are on duty, but they still can’t get their way into the admin building,” Kenta said. “Type in some silly password. A caution screen should show up followed by a code, a 512 number code, not like the long one from last night.”

“So all that. . .is the code?” Mitsuki said.

Thanks to Granny every that was in complete chaos is now being fixed. Kill Machine is surprised seeing that problem he caused inside of Zollars to effect the real world was now being fixed. He checked the telephone record to see who the cause of all of this was and of course, he found out it was Granny. If he was angry or had an evil smile, it never quite showed it.

“I know you can do it,” Granny told the person on the phone. “Of course you can.”

Sora was writing rapidly to solve the problem on a lot of papers.

“Who is this guy?” Shoji asked.

“Our national rep of the Math & Science Olympics,” Mitsuki answered.

“Well, first runner up at least,” Sora said. “I got it.”

He typed in the answer and pressed enter and he got the admin building opened. Kill Machine had to retreat, now that Sora fixed the problem with Zollars.

“Hey, we’re in!” Masaomi said online.

“Yeah!” everyone said, minus Sora.

“Alright!” Mikado said.

“Good news, Sora,” Kenta said getting on Haruto’s computer.

“Huh?” Sora asked.

“I checked the security log on my phone. You see these are the list of 33 people around the world that broke the code last night,” he said pointing at the list of names. “Turns out that you’re not on the list.”

“Why not?” Sora asked.

“Ah, because somebody got the last letter wrong. Oh boo boo.”

“What?!” Sora said shocked and surprised.

“Oh burn!” Masaomi said online. “The failed representative got careless!! Hahahaha!”

“Well that sucks, so you’re not a criminal?” Shoji asked.

“Everyone got their avatar jacked, right answer or not,” Kenta said. “Jeez, give us a smile already at least you got it right this time.”

“Boo,” Sora said with a smile.

Mitsuki giggled a bit. “Haha.”

“Great job you guys,” Mikado said online, “but it’s not over yet. Kill Machine is still at large and we got to be there to stop him.

“I already got the Dollars helping out on the job,” he said. “Well, what’s still left of them.”

“Good,” Sora said, “we’ll need both the Dollars and the Zollars working together to take this guy down.”

“Got it,” Mikado said. “We’ll be there tonight shortly, but right now we got to focus on the problem at hand and that’s the problem with Zollars and that problem is none other. . .than Kill Machine.”

“Right,” everyone said.

“Naruto, take them to your machine,” Mikado ordered.

“Got it,” Naruto said giving him a thumbs up, “you can count on me!”

Then Mikado and his friends logged out.

“Machine?” Sora asked. “What machine?”

“Follow me if you want to find out,” Naruto said with a smile.

They followed him to his room, which wasn’t very big. Until he lead them to the room behind his room and it was really big.

“Whoa!” Sora said.

“What the. . .” Kenta said.

“What is this place?” Sora asked in amazement.

Even the others were amazed by its glory and technology machinery.

“This is my real room, where I build my inventions,” Naruto answered.

“Some of this looks like the stuff from science fiction movies,” Kenta and Sora both said.

“It is,” Naruto said.

“Huh?!” they both said.

“I even got more in the basement,” he said.

“There’s a basement here too?!!” they both asked.

“Those look like the exact same thing computer from Code Lyoko!” Sora said.

“And those coffins are the exact same coffins from the Mortality Doctrine book series!” Kenta said.

“Are all of these--” everyone said.

“Yup, everyone of them,” Naruto said. “And they all belong to me now.”

“What?!!” everyone said, minus Shizuo.

‘This is crazy!’ Celty said. ‘I didn’t even know about all of this, or this room either, Naruto!’

“Me neither,” Shinra said. “Why didn’t you tell us about this, Naruto?! This place is awesome!”

“Where’d you even get all of this stuff, Naruto?!” Shoji asked him.

“And where’d you even managed to buy all of this stuff?! How, I should say?!” Haruto asked.

“Tell us, Naruto!!” everyone asked, minus Shizuo. “Tell us!!”

“SHUT UP!!!!” Naruto shouted in frustration. “All of you, that’s an order!! Understand?!!”

They just stared with a blank wide eye expressions in silence.

Naruto exhaled a deep breath and said. “Everyone just clam down and I’ll explain in short. First, sorry for yelling. Second, these machines transport you into ZOLLAR or let you poses your own avatar. Third, I got all of this stuff thanks to Takeru and the government. Fourth, we’re going to use these machines to fight Kill Machine from the inside ZOLLAR. Fifth, I like to keep my inventions private sometimes. And sixthly, the machines are to be kept secret from the rest of the family. Welcome to my laboratory, Team Zollar.”

Then a voice came from the supercomputer. “Shall I get them started, Sir Naruto?”

“Whoa!” everyone said.

“A talking computer program,” Sora said.

“Yeah, cool,” Kenta said.

“Yes, you may. Begin preparations immediately,” Naruto told the program.

“Yes, sir.”

“Who is that?” Sora asked.

“His name’s Jarvis,” Naruto said.

“Jarvis?” Kenta asked. “Like off of Iron Man, Jarvis?”

“Yes,” Jarvis said.

“Cool,” both Shoji and Kenta said.

“Yeah,” both Sora and Mitsuki said.

“Sir, I sense the A.I. known as Kill Machine that you replied to me to hunt down has started to trap users in the admin building,” Jarvis said.

“What?!” everyone said.

All avatar users inside and outside the admin building inside ZOLLAR, were starting to freak out and panic. The ones trapped inside were banging on the entrance to get out and the ones outside were trying to help open the entrance, but with no luck.

“May we hurry this up, sir?” Jarvis asked. “There are citizens in danger and we have not the time to think here.”

“Yeah, hurry!” Naruto said.

“Ready to transport you to ZOLLAR when you are, Master Naruto.”

“Got it,” Naruto said. “Let’s go, you guys!”

“Right!” everyone said.

“Sora, Kenta, and Haruto will stay here to their avatars,” Naruto ordered. “The rest of you get into a Coffin to poses your avatars, or go to a transporter to send yourselves inside ZOLLAR. Now go, go, go!”

Shinra and Shizuo got in the transporters, while Celty, Mitsuki, and Shoji went into the Coffins.

“Scanning Shinra. Scanning Shizuo,” Jarvis said. “Virtualization.”

Shinra and Shizuo made it inside ZOLLAR, along with the others. Sora and the others logged in to their avatars to join the others.

“Mikado, you there?” Naruto asked.

Mikado’s face popped up on the screen with Masaomi, Anri, and Saki in the background. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

“Kill Machine’s trapped avatar users inside the admin building, we need your help,” Sora said.

“You can count on us,” Mikado said before his face left the screen.

It wasn’t long before Mikado and his friends showed up in their group.

“So how do we get them out of there, anyway?” Masaomi asked.

“Beats me,” Mikado said.

“We’ll split up into two teams,” Naruto said. “Sora, Mitsuki, Shoji, Kenta, and Haruto are with me. The rest of you with Mikado.”

“Right!” everyone said.

Mikado’s group looked above and below the admin building for Kill Machine, while Sora and his group went to help the other avatars out into freeing the rest out of the admin building.

“You know, I’ve been thinking you guys,” Mikado said.

“Huh?” Masaomi asked.

“That the website ZOLLAR and the Zollars gang both might have a leader,” Mikado said.

“Does the ZOLLAR world and gang even have a leader?” Kenta asked.

“According to Jarvis it does,” Naruto said, “but let’s not worry about that right now guys. Let’s just focus on the task at hand, okay?”

The leader, huh? Sora thought. Jarvis doesn’t know it’s me, does he?

Then Sora came to the realization that it was all a trap to lure them to the A.I.

“Guys, run!” Sora shouted to everyone. “Everyone, get out of here now! It’s a trap!”

But it was too late, Kill Machine came down attacking him and Naruto’s group.

Kill Machine pushed through Naruto and his team and started attacking Sora’s avatar again, he has easily defeated Sora’s avatar. Just when it was about to absorb Sora’s guest avatar, Haruto yelled at him to log out and he did.

Kenta did the same thing of logging off too, before Kill Machine would have the chance to take his account too.

Mikado and his group came to join the fight too.

Kill Machine fought every last one of them. Mitsuki wanted to join in, but Shoji stopped her.

“Mitsuki, no!” he said. “You’ll be absorbed too!”

“Jarvis, how do I free everyone in the admin building?” Sora asked.

“Do the same thing like done before with the admin building,” Jarvis said.

“Another code to solve?”

“Yes.”

“Alright.”

“But you’ll have to do it inside of ZOLLAR this time. It won’t work in the real world this time.”

“Huh?” Sora, Naruto, Haruto, and Kenta said. “What?”

Then Haruto and Naruto turned their attention back to their computers.

Then Sora thought back to when he was the first one, Kill Machine attacked when it showed its-self to him and Naruto’s team.

He’s trying to lure me in to get me out of the picture, he thought. I’ll have to take the risk.

Naruto was going for the surprise attack to do on Kill Machine from behind. “Payback time, you mother—

Kill Machine saw him coming and so he kicked Naruto’s avatar in the face and his avatar lost the battle, Naruto logged off really fast.

“Thank god, that was close,” Naruto said.

“Naruto,” Sora said.

“Yeah?”

“Get Mitsuki and Shoji out of there,” he said. “They’ll lose in this fight if they stay.”

“Got it.”

Naruto pushed a button on his computer and Mitsuki and Shoji was out of the ZOLLAR world and waked up back in their Coffins in the real world.

When Mitsuki and Shoji got out of their Coffins, they were a bit dizzy like they was trying not to fall asleep.

“Hey guys,” Shoji said walking to us slowly. “Remind me . . . not to . . .” he yawned, “. . . go in there . . . again.”

He fell on the floor asleep and started to snore.

“Hey Sora,” Mitsuki said before she started to fall asleep too.

Sora ran to catch her, when he did she smiled happily asleep in his arms.

He smiled and laid her down softly on the ground.

Kill Machine was giving everyone a hard time, so Mikado, Masaomi, and Saki told them and the others they were logging out and they did.

Shinra didn’t even bother to join the fight, he stayed out of it.

“Alright,” Sora said. “I’m going in. Jarvis, transport me inside ZOLLAR.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What?!” Naruto, Haruto, and Kenta said.

Haruto quickly looked back to see his avatar getting his butt kicked, but Haruto fought back with Shizuo’s help.

“Shizuo, Celty, Anri, I’m going to log out for a sec, then come back in to poses my avatar!” Haruto said.

“Got it!” they said while fighting Kill Machine.

Haruto logged out.

“Alright, we’ll let you go crack the code but you ain’t going in alone,” Haruto said, “so count me in.”

“I’m with you too,” Naruto said.

“Right,” Sora said.

Sora got in the transporter and Haruto and Naruto got in the Coffins.

“Scanning Sora,” Kenta said. “Virtualization.”

Kenta pressed enter and Sora was transported to ZOLLAR. Haruto and Naruto arrived beside him shortly afterwards.

“Alright,” Sora said. “Let’s go!”

“Right!” said the both of them.

They flied while in the air to get back to the admin building.

Kenta decided to help out on the outside. He typed a bunch of stuff to help his friends out in the Zollars. He calls Mikado, Masaomi, and ANri online, until their faces finally pop up on the screen. Then he left a comment for Shinra to read.

“What is it, Kenta?” Mikado asked.

“Are you almost here at the house?” Kenta asked.

“Yeah, we just arrived and just on time and real early too,” Mikado said.

“Where are you and we’ll find you in the house?” Masaomi asked.

“We’re in Naruto’s room,” Kenta said still typing stuff up.

“We’ll be there real soon,” Anri said. “Just wait for us, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Kenta said. “No problem. Just run as fast as you can.”

Their faces popped off the screen.

Shinra finally saw the comment in the air that Kenta left for him.

It said: “Shinra, come back to aid Mitsuki and Shoji. They fell right asleep when they came back to the real world. Check ‘em out. P.S. Sora went to the admin building.”

Shinra yelled out in the air for Kenta to hear. “Kenta! I got your message! Get me out and I’ll be able to help you!”

“Gotcha,” Kenta said pressing a button and Shinra came out of the transporter.

Shinra didn’t feel dizzy or anything when he got back. He was perfectly fine and he checked up on the sleeping Mitsuki and Shoji.

“They’ll be out for a while, but they’ll awake soon,” Shinra said.

“Good, now to tell Shizuo, Celty, and Anri to get out of there too,” Kenta said. “But first, to give King Haruto, Naruto, and Sora the heads up.”

Sora, Haruto, and Naruto were only half way to the admin building when they heard Kenta’s voice talking to them.

“Sora! It’s me, Kenta!”

“What’s wrong?” Sora asked.

“I’m going to tell Shizuo, Celty, and Anri to retreat,” he said. “I’ll need Haruto and Naruto to fight and distract the A.I. to give you a chance to crack the code again to free all the avatars trapped inside, all right?”

“OK, will do,” Sora said.

“We’ll buy you some time,” Naruto said.

“Right,” Sora said.

“Let’s go!” Naruto told Haruto.

And they both flied really fast back to where Kill Machine and their friends were.

Kenta gave out a comment to all the avatars in ZOLLAR.

KING HARUTO AND NARUTO

TEAM UP AGAINST KILL MACHINE!!

P.S.

THE BLACK RIDER AND SHIZUO HEIWAJIMA

JOINS THE FIGHT TOO!

That got everyone’s attention.

“Anri, leave now!” Kenta warned her.

“Alright,” she said. “We also made it to Naruto’s room. Where are you?”

“Just wait in the room, we’ll meet you there,” Kenta said.

“Right,” Anri said logging off.

“Shinra, open the door,” Kenta told him.

“OK.”

Shinra ran to the door and opened it to pull Anri and her friends into Naruto’s secret room and base of operation.

They stared in awe as Shinra closed the door behind them.

“Oh man, what is all this stuff?” Mikado asked.

“An inventor’s lab,” Masaomi said. “I think.”

“Naruto’s room,” Anri said.

“Yeah,” Saki said.

Shinra stood in front of them on their left. “Amazing, right?”

“Yeah. Right. Amazing. Cool,” they all said.

“Alright, almost done,” Kenta said still typing.

He noticed an unknown avatar approaching Shizuo and Celty’s direction.

“Who’s that?” Kenta said checking out the avatar’s identity. “Wait, is that . . . Kinnosuke?!”

Celty had Kill Machine wrapped in her black sphere made from her shadows. Oh and Celty’s able to talk in the world of ZOLLAR.

“Well, that was fast,�� Celty said.

“Yeah, I guess it was,” Shizuo smiled.

“Celty, get out of there now!” Kenta said. “It’s Kinnosuke Kuzuhara! His avatar’s coming your way! He’s like some white robotic version of RoboCop or something!”

“What?!!” she said.

“RoboCop? What’s that? A movie?” Shizuo asked.

“Yes! Now run!” Kenta warned them. “Here he comes!”

Celty and Shizuo spotted Kinnosuke flying in, but Celty wrapped herself and Shizuo in her shadowy sphere and when the sphere swept away, even the ones trapping Kill Machine were gone. Shizuo and Celty were both gone to Kinnosuke’s surprise.

Celty woke up out of her Coffin and Shizuo stepped out of his transporter.

Celty was surprised to see Mikado and his friends here.

Mikado and his friends were happy to see her.

“Celty,” Mikado said in relief.

‘I thought you four weren’t coming, until tonight?’

“We were but traffic started to speed things up pretty fast,” Mikado said.

‘That’s good,’ Celty said. ‘Glad to hear it.’

“Celty, are you all right?” Shinra asked touching her shoulders.

‘I am now, now that I am with you now, Shinra,’ she said.

He smiled at the compliment.

Shizuo walked up beside the two and Anri was glad to see him.

“Shizuo,” she said smiling.

“Who are you—Anri, right?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Nice to meet you again too,” he said smiling with a thumbs up and a wink.

She smiled back and did that bowing gesture.

“Alright, I’m almost done,” Kenta said typing as rapidly as he can.

‘What happened to Kinnosuke’s avatar?’ Celty asked Kenta, worried that the motorcycle cop’s avatar was taken too.

“Hold on, let me check,” Kenta said. “Whoa, his avatar just gotten beat up by Kill Machine!”

‘What?!’

The avatar of Kinnosuke was badly beaten up, then Kill Machine absorbed his account.

“Hey you, Kill Machine, over here!” Haruto yelled down at the A.I. with Naruto by his side.

Kill Machine looked up and saw them. They flew down with a surprise attack. The tag team were working together to take down Kill Machine.

All the avatars were watching from above or below. They were cheering the two on to defeat Kill Machine.

Kenta contacted Sora on what was going on. “Sora, it’s just you, King Haruto, and Naruto now. They’re fighting off against Kill Machine, you’re on your own now.”

“Got it,” Sora said. “I just made it back to the admin building. I’m solving the problem now.”

When Sora finished solving the code, he didn’t like what the answer was. It said: “I want the Leader of the Zollars.”

“What?!” Sora was all shaken up, his fears have come true. Kill Machine was after him.

“Sora!” Kenta said. “King Haruto and Naruto were just devirtualize by Kill Machine! Solve the answer and run!”

Sora snapped out of it and typed in the right answer and pushed enter and the admin building was opened once again.

“I got it,” Sora said.

“Sora, behind you!” Kenta warned.

Sora looked back and saw Kill Machine coming in his direction really close and really fast.

Sora was terrified, that was when a program showed up and fought Kill Machine. It looked like Anon from the XBOX360 game Tron: Evolution.

“What? Is that—

“Yeah, it is. But he won’t last very long so run. Now!” Kenta said.

Sora flew away past them.

“I’m giving you a power boost to fly really fast, Sora,” Kenta said.

“Thanks!”

“Don’t mention it.”

Then Sora started going extra faster.

Anon was derezed and Kill Machine started to go really faster to chase after Sora.

“I got a portal opened up for you, Sora,” Kenta said. “Do you see it?”

There was a yellow big portal just a few feet away up ahead.

“I see.”

“Go through it!” Kena said. “It’ll take you back to the real world, but hurry Kill Machine is gaining up on you!”

Sora was just a few inches from the portal now and Kill Machine was right behind him getting ready to strike his spear down upon Sora to cut him in half, but he missed when Sora got into the portal and the portal disappeared.

Sora jumped out of the transporter and fell on the ground. “Ah! Ow!”

The group stared down at him and helped him up.

“You made it,” Mikado said.

“Yeah, I did didn’t I?” Sora said.

Mitsuki and Shoji were finally up and at ‘em.

Then a thought occurred to him. Kill . . . Machine? A man name Daisuke. Pittsburg. The Zollars.

Sora ran to Haruto’s computer and onto the Zollars’ webpage and was doing something on it.

What’s he doing? Celty thought.

Then when everyone saw what he was on on the Zollars, they were shocked and surprised who Sora Jackman really was.

“No way,” Mikado said.

“He’s the. . .” Masaomi said.

“Yeah,” Anri said.

“I had no idea you were . . . My best friend was . . .” Kenta said.

“This guy?” Shoji asked.

“Yeah,” Shizuo said now smiling. “I never would have guessed it either.”

“Sora, are you the . . .” Mitsuki asked.

After Sora finished up whatever he was doing. He got up and turned to his friends.

“All right, now all my cards are in order now,” Sora said. “Allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Sora Jackman and I am the leader of the Zollars.

“Sorry, I kept my identity a secret of being the leader of the Zollars. But I wanted to keep my leadership a secret, until now. Hey, give me a smile already guys at least we did something.”

They gave a smile and a nervous laugh too, minus Shizuo who pretty much laughed for real.

The news lady said stuff on TV at the dining table for supper tonight. “—and so the entire country was in a state of panic today.”

“According to the reports, the Zollars system was restored and everything has gone back to normal so far,” a man’s voice on the news said. “The same chaos happened around the world, but were fixed thanks to the ZOLLARS system’s recovery. We’re still trying to find an explanation for all of this.”

“It’s Day 10 of the Baseball Tournament, a week and a half into the tournament and after the afternoon slug battle. Ueda High School makes it to the finals,” a man’s voice on TV said.

Everyone cheered.

This time Takeo, Isamu, Hiroki, Mikado, Masaomi, Anri, Saki, Shinra, Celty, and Haruto was present at the table with the rest of them. Shizuo smoked outside, while Daisuke sat away from the family and drank beer.

“32 hits and they win?!” Takeo said. “Amazing!”

“Even when he thinks he’s gonna lose, it’s written all over his face,” Hiroki said.

“Like father, like son,” Isamu said.

Isamu and Takeo laughed.

“Mitsuki, when your parents getting here?” Takeo asked Mitsuki.

“Well, dad’s working tonight to fix the water pipes and mom’s in Saitama at some random business hotel,” she said.

“Good to hear,” Takeo said. “I’m glad their okay.”

“If Granny didn’t call everyone up, we would have had a lot of trouble out there today,” Isamu said. “Ain’t that right, grandma?”

“Oh no, I didn’t do anything,” she said. “You all did the greatest jobs out there today. I didn’t do anything, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh sure,” Hiroki said.

“No other grandma is that awesome,” Isamu said.

“Best one in Japan,” Takeo said. “No, the whole world.”

“Silly boys,” she said.

The three started laughing.

“Sora,” Granny said.

“Yeah?” Sora asked.

“I hear tell you worked real especially hard today,” she said.

“Oh no, no. It was nothing really,” he said.

“Mitsuki’s boyfriend helped out?” Takeo asked.

“He’s not her boyfriend,” Shoji said.

“He fixed the problem with ZOLLARS twice from what I’ve heard,” Nami said.

“Not bad for a junior college student,” Haruna said.

“Way to go, boyfriend!” the three sons of Makato said.

“He’s not her boyfriend!” Shoji repeated himself.

“And check this out everyone,” Masaomi said getting up and being his goofy old-self. “We’ve all found out that this boyfriend is none other than the leader of the Zollars gang himself.”

“Whoa!” the whole family said, because they didn’t know that. “Cool!”

“Awesome, boyfriend!” the three sons of Makato said.

“I told you, he’s not her boyfriend!!” Shoji said.

“Neither are you, Shoji, so chill out,” Hiroki said.

Everyone laughed.

The news man was saying something. “—though ZOLLARS is up and running again, a few users are unable to access their accounts. The reasons are still unknown.”

Sora said, “It’s because—

“It’s because we haven’t defeated Kill Machine yet,” Haruto said.

“Exactly,” Sora said.

“Kill Machine?” Hana asked out of her angry mood now.

“Like the song Love Machine or something or what?” Hiroto asked.

“It’s an account stealing A.I.,” Haruto said putting his laptop on the table for everyone to gather around to see the picture of Kill Machine.

“That’s one mean looking avatar,” Haruna said.

“No kidding that one’s bad news,” Nami said.

“This thing caused all of that trouble today?” Hiroki asked.

“They’re not mentioning him on the news,” Masato said.

“It’s only a matter of time, sensei,” Haruto said. “The world of ZOLLARS is big. People that seen him are starting to band together, if we could just pull out some info or anything we might just be able to beat him.”

“Hahahaha. That’s very good and all, but it’s not going to work,” Daisuke spoke up.

Everyone stared at him.

Haruto got up and asked him, “Oh yeah and how would you know that?”

“Good question, because . . . Kill Machine was programmed by yours truly,” he said.

Haruto, Sora, and Mitsuki were surprised at this.

I knew it . . . I knew it was him, Sora thought before giving an angry look.

“You made Kill Machine?” Haruto asked him.

“Yeah, I developed an A.I., made for hacking,” Daisuke said.

Back in ZOLLARS, Kill Machine took on every fighters that came at him at once and he defeated every last one of them. He absorbed them all and the only two fighters left were King Haruto and Naruto that he still hasn’t gotten his hands yet.

“Really all I did was simple. I infused a program with the desire to learn,” Daisuke said. “It has a thirs for knowledge. A military branch came and offered to buy it from me for some serious Koi, provided I give it a test drive.”

“A test . . .?!” Sora said.

“I never figured they’d use ZOLLARS as a field test. The results are too damn amazing,” Daisuke said. “As his coded instinct continues to grow, he’ll continue taking over more and more user privileged accounts as he acquires more information throughout the world, his abilities will increase and become more powerful than you can ever imagine,” he continued. “Kill Machine’s as strong as a billion men army now. See that’s why you can’t defeat it.”

Haruto was really shaken up now and Sora clenched his fist and was a bit mad.

Why? Why would you do this?! Why would you make such a thing?!! Sora wanted to say to him, but he knew the answers to that already.

“Do you know how many were infected and troubled by all of this?! Or how much damage you’ve done to our society?!” Takeo asked.

“It’s not my fault, I’m innocent,” Daisuke said. “The A.I.’s acting on its own. So if you want to be mad be mad at Kill Machine.”

“It’s your creation and it’s putting everyone’s lives in danger! Do something about it!” Isamu said.

“It’s like I’m talking to a wall,” Daisuke said. “If I get involved now, I might be a criminal. So—

Hiroki walked up to Daisuke and grabbed him by the collar and pulled him on his feet. Daisuke dropped and broke his glass of beer in the process.

“Keep trying to talk your way out of this!” Hiroki yelled in his face.

“Stop it!” Takeo said.

“Don’t you dare pretend that all of this garbage isn’t your fault!” Hiroki shouted as his two brothers held him back.

“You idiot, listen to me,” Daisuke said. “How many times do I have to keep saying it to knock some sense into you?! I only developed the damn thing, it’s not like I told it what to do, like take over the damn planet!”

“That’s bullshit!” Hiroki shouted.

“Both of you, stop fighting in front of Granny!” Takeo ordered them.

Shizuo growled really loud.

He stepped on his cigarette and walked over to Daisuke and everyone stepped out of his way as he walked over to Daisuke and said, “You piss me off! You’re saying that even though you made it that it ain’t your fault for giving it to the military in the first place?!”

Daisuke looked really scared of Shizuo’s angry look.

“You’re telling me . . .” Shizuo said pulling out a wooden square column. “. . . you really think . . . that’s not . . .”

“Oh boy,” Takeo said.

“. . . YOU’RE FAULT!!!!” Shizuo yelled before sending a screaming Daisuke into the air.

When Daisuke was coming down, Shizuo used the wooden column like a bat to hit Daisuke to a wall before tossing it aside.

Shizuo grabbed him by the collar and was about to literally knock some sense into him, when Takeo came in to stop it and calm Shizuo down.

“Stop it, you guys! Not in front of Granny!” he said.

Shizuo was calm and so he let go of Daisuke and they stared at Granny.

Granny didn’t look happy when she looked at Daisuke, “Daisuke.”

Daisuke walked to stand in front of Granny and looked her in the eyes, “Granny. You understand, don’t you?”

She stood silence.

He inhaled and exhaled, “Sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused up ‘til now, honest,” he said. “It’s just that these last couple of years I’ve been working really hard. So I could come back home to make you proud of me.”

She gave a sad concerned look.

“Read it. See Granny,” he said pulling out his cell phone and showing it to Granny for her to read.

“Well?” he said. “The U.S. Army decided to buy Kill Machine for an enormous price, it’s a fortune. We’ll have money again, like when Gramps was alive but even more,” he continued. “And I never could have done it without you, after all that money you gave me funded my project every step of the way.”

She was shocked when he said all of that, then got angry and walked to fast to grab a spear for a weapon.

“Mother!” Noriko said scared.

Granny came at him with it and he let go of his phone in panic, or dropped it while in panic.

“Look out!” Mitsuki said to Daisuke.

Daisuke was dodging all of her swings and made a mess in the process.

Granny gad the tip of her spear pointed at him, “On your feet and die like a man.”

He grabbed the blade point of the spear and got up, “I should have never come back here.”

He let the spear go and walked away to leave.

“Uncle!” Mitsuki said starting to go after him.

“Mitsuki!” Granny said.

She stopped and watched as her uncle walked away.

“All right everyone, this is a mistake caused by one of our own. Therefore we have to be the ones to fix it,” Granny said. “Now everybody cleanup, a family attends to their own messes and this one will be no different.”

Granny walked away and left them all with the cleaning.

They was cleaning and putting the tables back where they belong and threw away broken glass.

Sora saw Mitsuki still sitting by herself, so he wanted to see if she was okay.

“Mitsuki?” he asked.

She got up and walked away.

He left the dishes and went after her in the hallway, “Mitsuki, wait.”

“Leave me alone,” she said without even turning around to look at him. “I had about enough than I can deal with.”

That was the last thing she said before she left. Sora was about to go back to the cleaning when he heard Granny’s voice.

“Psss,” she said.

“Huh?” he said.

He turned to see her hand waving for him to come with her.

He helped Granny into her room.

“These legs of mine were a lot more easier back in the day,” she said.

“You may have over did things back there,” he said.

“Thank you son, you’re a real help,” she said.

“I should get back to the cleaning,” Sora said.

“Tell me, Sora, have you ever played Honafuda Koi-Koi?”

“Afraid I haven’t.”

She shuffled and laid out the cards.

“In years past we used to play as a family, but now everyone is so busy with their own lives now a days. You can go first.”

“Okay thanks.”

“I’m sorry you had to witness our family drama earlier.”

“That’s fine.”

“And Mitsuki’s foolishness, honestly.”

“Koi-Koi, ma’am.”

“Very good.”

“Uh . . . thank you very much.”

“You see, Daisuke is my adopted son. He’s always been a very bright child, he had a hard time fitting in, somewhat rebellious, and he would work twice as hard as everyone else and wouldn’t want any help,” she continued. “I never wanted him to be discriminated against, nor did I want him to be concerned about being indebted to us. This is my responsibility. When he took our property 10 years ago, it was the first time he had ever depended on me for something and I have long forgiven him ages ago. Now, it’s a matter of being forgiven or not.”

“I can understand Daisuke a bit,” Sora said. “He feels like wanting to be recognized by someone to be necessary to them. But if you have no confidence in yourself, it feels like a fruitless effort. But I’ll help to the best and beyond of my abilities to beat Kill Machine.”

“I know you will,” she said.

They was silence for a while, until Granny asked a question, “So, you like Mitsuki, don’t you?”

Sora blushed, “Uh . . . I’ve always loved her when I first started college. She was the school’s most popular girl. She has the looks of an expensive flower and the heart of a lion.”

“That child?”

“Yeah.”

“So if I should win, what do I get for my troubles?”

“Huh?”

“It doesn’t pack much of a punch if you don’t make a wager to make things more interesting. Oh look Koi-Koi

“If I beat you at Hanafuda . . . I’d like you to swear to take good care of Mitsuki.”

“What?” Sora asked in surprise.

“She’s the type of girl that would drag in some boy to being her fiancé and he turns out to be the leader of the Zollars and she doesn’t even know how to fall in love with someone. She’s still very childish and still does many foolish things, but even so, if you can look beyond that I’ll ask again,” she said. “Please Sora, take good care of Mitsuki.”

He was surprised to hear her asking him to take care of the girl he loves.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded, “I know you can do it, if it’s you, I believe you can do it.”

Then he realized that Kill Machine would have her killed and that was the other reason why she was asking him to do this.

You’re dying. No . . . you know you are going to die, he wanted to say.

He wanted to help her, save her, watch her in her sleep to protect her for Kill Machine, but he knew she was expecting that and would rather die anyway to protect her family. Or maybe she had a plan and he just didn’t know what it was.

He wanted to ask, or say something about it but nothing ever came out.

Then he smiled, “You can count on me, Granny. I’ll devote my life to you to protect Mitsuki all the way to the end, even if I have to—

“I win.”

“What?”

“Looks like I still got it,” she said. “Hahahaha.”

Sora noticed a strange devise on her chest and wondered about it, but did not ask about it.

Sora went to bed after that ‘cause that cleaning was already done. He tried to go to sleep, but it was difficult for him to when thinking about Granny and Mitsuki. He was feeling bad not looking after Granny after discovering the truth, but he finally managed to go to sleep and was hearing a ringing bell sound while sleeping and dreaming.

His dream turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. First, his dream was about him running out of bed and into the hallway to go save Granny. When he got there, the devise on her chest started to glow and bright up the place.

Ring, ring.

Sora found himself inside ZOLLAR.

Ring, ring.

Sora found himself in front of Kill Machine and he screamed and ran away, while Kill Machine chased after him from behind.

Ring, ring.

Every avatars around was wounded and injured and laid down unconscious. Everything was a mess and in chaos.

Ring, ring.

He even saw his unconscious friends: Mitsuki’s avatar, his quest avatar, King Haruto, and everyone. All of them defeated by Kill Machine.

Ring, ring.

Sora heard a weapon being drawn from behind him. He turned around to see if it was Kill Machine.

Ring, ring.

He was surprised to see it was Granny with her spear ready to attack Kill Machine with.

“Granny . . .!!!” Sora called out to her.

Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring.

Then the ringing stopped and everything went black at first.

When the dream came back, Granny wasn’t there anymore like she just disappeared or wasn’t even there to begin with.

Sora got angry at Kill Machine, so he grabbed a weapon and charged to attack Kill Machine with it. He jumped up into the air to strike his weapon down upon Kill Machine to cut him in half as he screamed in anger.

Sora heard dog barking sounds, but ignored it even if it started to get louder.

“Hello, leader of the Zollars!” Kill Machine spoke, which surprised Sora and it caused him to wake up.

“Ah!” Sora said as he stood out of bed really fast and the barking stopped. “What a frightening dream.”

Hachi started to bark again, before running off.

“Hachi? What’s wrong?” he asked the dog (sort of).

Then he saw Noriko and Makato running down the hall.

“Makato, hurry!” Noriko told him.

“I’m coming!” he said.

“Hurry, please!” she said.

They were freaked out and scared about something and Sora was going to find out what. He chased after them and saw all the family running to Granny’s room, so he followed them there.

When Sora got in there, he realized that his worst fears and discoveries have come true. Granny was dead.

“Please breathe,” Mitsuki said sadly.

“You have to help her!” Noriko said.

Hiroki had his hands on her chest to pump out some air to get her to breathe.

“Granny . . . Granny, wake up,” a sad Mitsuki said.

“Mother!” Noriko said.

“Granny, please!” the women said.

“Please, you have to help her!” Noriko said.

“Please, don’t die,” one of the women said.

“Please, please, don’t leave us,” another woman said.

“Let me have a try,” Takeo said, but Hiroki wasn’t planning on stopping.

“That’s enough, Hiroki,” Makato told him.

“No, Hiroki, don’t you stop!” Noriko begged of him.

“Hiroki!” Makato said.

“I won’t!” he shouted.

“Hiroki, stop!” Shinra told him.

“Keep trying!” Mitsuki said in tears of sadness.

The kids, Shizuo, Celty, Mikado, Masaomi, Anri, Saki, Naruto, Shoji, Hana, and Kenta couldn’t believe it themselves either.

Hiroki kepted trying for as long as he could, but soon gave up and cried with his head held down.

“Looks like everyone’s here,” Makato said.

“Yeah,” Shinra said.

Makato checked his watch, “5:22 a.m.”

Later in the morning, the family and everyone was still in Granny’s room, sad of her death.

Makato reveals something to all of them.

“Mom had angina,” he said. “She took nitroglycerin for it. I used this heart monitor to keep track of all her health. Heart rate, blood pressure, perspiration levels. This thing would have immediately alarmed me if something went wrong, but it stopped receiving the data late last night.”

“Because of ZOLLARS being down,” Takeo said.

“Someone that works for the health department must have gotten their account stolen,” Sora said.

“So if ZOLLARS was working she’d be okay?!” Masato asked.

“Maybe it was just her time,” Makato said.

“She had lots of time left here, damn it!” Masato said. “Where’s Daisuke?! I’m gonna break his worthless neck!”

“We don’t know. He stole Shoji’s car and left,” Hiroki said.

“He’s been gone for 10 whole years,” Isamu said. “Heck, we don’t even have a phone number to get in contact with him.”

Masato turned around and punched the wooden part of the doorway, “Damn it!”

The baby, Saburo, started crying in the room he was sleeping in. Midori got up to check on her son, “Sorry. Excuse me. Sorry.”

Hachi looked sad that his owner was dead and Granny still had that devise on her chest, but this time it glowed blue in the center of it.

The family was all in the other room sad and depressed that Granny was gone, even Celty and them seemed sad about her loss. Sora was already dressed up by now and he and Mitsuki both sat far away from the family.

“Make them stop,” Mitsuki told Sora without even looking at him.

“Huh?” he asked.

“My tears, I can’t stop them. Hold me, right here,” she said moving her hand over for him to hold on to. “Please Sora, make them stop.”

He hesitated for a second, but he putted his hand on top of hers.

She started crying, so Sora grabbed her hand and held on instead.

The news started to talk about today’s news, “On our top story today, over 10 million users in ZOLLARS are unable to access their ZOLLARS account, because of the system wide errors that brought the Internet to a hold today.”

Later on, Sora went to the room he was staying in to call his mom.

“I wonder if mom’s angry or worried. She must be,” he said to himself.

He waited for her to pick up the phone and when she did, she said, “Hello?”

“Hey mom, it’s me Sora.”

“Sora, are you okay?!” she asked. “I’ve been worried sick about you!”

“Sorry, about that.”

“Yesterday, the police came to the house asking questions about you.”

“Ah. Mom, I can explain.”

“It’s all right. Everybody knows you aren’t the criminal now,” she said. “Even Kenta’s mom and Eska contacted me and explained everything to me. Eska even said you were the leader of the Zollars.”

“Really?! Wait what?!”

“It’s okay, Sora. I don’t care if you are the leader of the Zollars or not. I just want you to know, I’m proud of you no matter what. That Eska sure can convince and talk some sense into ya.”

Thank you, Granny Eska! Sora thought.

“Sora.”

“Yeah?”

“Please, hurry home.”

“I’d love to mom, but . . . I can’t leave them just yet,” he said. “I still have things I have to do here.”

“But your birthday’s coming soon.”

“It’ll have to wait,” he said. “Bye, mom.”

He hung up.

That was the first time Sora’s every showed his mom determination.

He went to the living room to have some breakfast, when Mami noticed him coming in.

“Oh Sora, please have some breakfast,” Mami said.

“Thanks.”

“But first, could you get Mitsuki?” she said.

“Ah, sure.”

“She’s on the second floor,” she said pointing in the direction. “The stairs are that way to your right.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Good luck,” she said.

“Thanks,” he said with a smile and a blush before going.

He went up the stairs and went straight to look for Mitsuki in one of the rooms, he found her in the last room.

“Hey Mitsuki, you should probably come down to eat, if you want to that is.”

She didn’t respond.

“Mitsuki?”

“This is my uncle’s room,” she said.

“Daisuke’s?”

She nodded, “We didn’t know when he’d be back, but Granny kept his room the same as it was when he left. I wonder why it turned out this way when he got back,” she continued. “Just so he could leave again.”

Sora then noticed the phone in her hands, realizing it was Daisuke’s phone.

“You trying to get in contact with him?” he asked. “Like call him, or something?”

“I can’t,” she said. “I’m having a hard time to get in touch with him.”

“You could always try Eska’s birthday for the passcode, if nothing else works,” he said remembering from the anime movie, Summer Wars.

“Thanks,” she said wipping a tear off her left eye, “but the family is torn apart now and . . . and . . . and I don’t even know what to do anymore. I’m all alone now.”

It took some time to answer, but Sora came up with an answer to respond to her about, “But you’re not alone, Mitsuki. It isn’t just Daisuke and Granny, either, but the feeling of wanting to see each other and be together is a great and powerful thing. You and the rest of the family are all the same way and in the same respect as they are,” he continued on. “I think I might have arrived with an answer, even if it takes an amount of time and instruction, even if it does take me a minute o fa million years to accomplish that answer for you and everyone here. I’m sure you and all of you can be guided there. I’m here for you, no matter what, and I’ll help you with whatever way I can to make you all happy again. So don’t be impatient. We’re all in this together, Mitsuki, so . . . I’m gonna do whatever I can to bring the family back together again.”

Granny Eska was such a great person in existence for the Jinnouchi, Sora thought. This home is uneasy without someone as their pillar.

Then Sora had a flashback of what Granny said to him, “If it’s you, I believe you can do it.”

Sora offered his hand to Mitsuki and she took it while Sora was still thinking, Everyone in this house, feels encouraged by Granny Eska. After all, they’re a family that gives it their best. She even believed in me too.

They walked down the stairs and to the living room to eat.

After everyone was done eating in silence, they started to talk and discuss things.

The ones that weren’t present in the room were Mitsuki, Kenta, Hana, Shizuka, the baby Saburo, Shoji, Celty, Shizuo, Shinra, Mikado, Masaomi, Anri, Saki, and of course as always the Akita dog Hachi.

Mitsuki, Shizuka, Saburo, and Shoji were somewhere in the house. Kenta and Hana went with Celty and them in town to do somethings, but Hana was still a little mad at Kenta.

“Have you called Ryo yet to tell him?” Hiroki asked his wife, Midori.

“No, I’ll tell him after his game,” she said. “I don’t want to ruin things for him.”

“That makes sense,” Hiroki said. “I think it’s for the best if we just keep it that way.”

After Noriko got done eating her bowl of rice, she said, “We’re going to be very busy today. Nami, Mami, Midori, you three will be in charge of the kitchen. Hiroki, you and your brothers make an arrangement meeting with the Temple. The rest of you, you tell every family and associates about what happened here today. Everybody got that?”

“There’s something we’ve gotta do before all that other crap,” Masato said.

“Mom, the red and white party buns,” Haruna said.

“I need to order funeral buns too,” Noriko said.

“I’m not talking about the damn buns!” Masato said getting up angrily. “I’m talking revenge! We’re gonna destroy that A.I. thing! Well, are we?!”

“Oh honestly,” Noriko said.

“What’d you say?!” he said.

“It’s true what they say about the second and youngest childish son in the family being useless.”

“That’s got nothing to do with it! First, second, oldest, youngest, or not!” he said. “The Jinnouchi family’s never run from a fight and we ain’t running now! Family taking care of the mistake made by one of our own was mom’s last words to all of us!”

“Dad, please!” Nami said. “Don’t declare war right before Granny’s funeral.”

“What, are you kidding me?!” he said. “We have to do something! Come on, we can dedicate out victory to her very own memory!”

The ladies didn’t liking what Masato was saying one bit.

“Um, excuse me,” Sora said raising his hand, then getting up to face the women. “I agree with him.”

“Yeah, yeah. Can outsider please stay out of this,” Nami said waving her hand.

“Nami,” Haruna said to her.

“Yeah, I’m an outsider, even when I was only here for two days. Granny Eska became an important person to me,” Sora said.

“Please, stop talking,” Noriko said.

Sora ignored her and said, “I never thought the problems in my very own website would cause so much trouble, or cause someone their life, but that’s exactly what happened. Kill Machine’s dangerous. What if what happened yesterday and this morning happens again somewhere else? Heck, what’s to stop it from attacking someone else’s family tomorrow or the next day, or the day after that next day? I just really don’t want to see the sadness that has befallen this home and family spread any further to more homes and families. That’s why we have to stop it, even alone if we have too. Whatever, it takes.”

“What?!” Nami said furious. “Kid, you got a lot of nerves saying all of that right now!”

“Look, all I’m saying is that we should make sure this isn’t going to happen to anyone else anymore,” he said.

“How dare you say and spout such nonsense in the middle of our home!” she said.

\“But I—

“You want us to worry about others right now? We got out own troubles and problems to deal with, thank you very much,” Nami said.

“I-I just want wanted to help,” he said.

Noriko got up and said, before clapping her hands, “Alright everybody, let’s go.”

It was just Sora, Masato, Haruto, Naruto, Hiroto, and Takeru in the room by themselves now.

“Cowards, the lot of them,” Masato said, “and they call themselves members of the Jinnouchi Clan?”

“I’m sorry for earlier. I should have not spoken out like that,” Sora said.

“No, your opinion was honest and it needed to be said,” Takeru said. “You need to protect others before you protect yourself and before they protect you too.”

“Is that supposed to be some Self-Defense Force motto, or something?” Hiroto asked.

“Not really. Well, not exactly I should have said,” he said. “I just got it off of the 1950s movie, ‘Seven Samurais.’”

“Uncle Hiroto,” Haruto said.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Hiroto asked his nephew.

“”Your store sells better computers than this one, right?”

“Yeah, you bet.”

Haruto closed his laptop and got up out of his chair.

“Haruto?” Sora said.

“I want to take out Kill Machine,” Haruto said. “It’s time for another rematch.”

Noriko, Haruna, and Nami were in the big room looking up pictures of Granny.

“I can’t believe that Masato, when there’s so much to do,” Noriko said looking through some pictures of Granny.

“This is gonna be tougher than I thought,” Nami said.

“Hey you two, what about this one?” Haruna asked.

“Oh, for when both the General and Governor gave her that metal,” Noriko said.

“It’s perfect,” Nami said.

The guys were in the garden planning on their attack.

“In the year 1600 of July 5th, Tokugawa Hidetada led a 38,000 men army to invade the smaller area of Ueda. We only had a 2,000 men army. How’d we do it, you ask?” Masato said.

#mamruhosoda ryoghonarita durarara!! summerwars

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