The scene shifted.
Somewhere underground, there was a completely sealed room with no windows.
Lines hanging from the ceiling connected to medical equipment at their ends.
In the center of the room lay a body on a specially made waterbed frame, thin, covered in bandages, and connected to several transparent tubes.
It was Kokichi Muta.
As he lay in that waterbed, his pupils suddenly dilated for an instant, and his fingers unconsciously clenched the sheets beneath the thin blanket.
"It's all right. Give me a little while, and I'll fix your Heavenly Restriction..."
Those words had come out so casually, without any embellishment, preamble, or explanation.
"This day..."
"Has it finally come?"
His gaze moved away from that beam of light and slowly lowered, sweeping over his own body.
He had always been trapped in this broken shell.
It had been this way for as long as he could remember.
He couldn't run, couldn't be exposed to sunlight, couldn't raise a hand and touch anything the way ordinary people could.
Whenever he saw Kasumi Miwa standing before him and speaking to him, he could only watch her through that metal shell, unable even to show her a real smile.
Mechamaru was his eyes, his hands, his legs, and the only bridge between him and this world.
But that wasn't him.
That wasn't the real Kokichi Muta.
"I can finally..."
"Appear before them in my real body."
"And... stand beside her."
He closed his eyes, trying hard to steady the pounding in his chest.
The scene returned to Tree-Lined Road.
Wangchuan waved his hand in midair, his fingertips swaying from side to side in front of Mechamaru's round mechanical head.
"Hello?"
"Mechamaru?"
"Seriously? That made you crash?"
He floated sideways in midair, tilting his head as he looked down at the