"-president of IPC was arrested recently, following one of the swiftest court trials in Japanese history," the news reporter narrates. "With multiple witnesses and almost overwhelming evidence, Shuseki Blaze was convicted of quite possibly one of the worst cases of child abuse this country has ever seen." The image on the holographic screen changes from the news reporter's face to an image taken from inside the courtroom. "The court saw video footage of this abuse, which bordered on torture, from two NetNavi witnesses. Esteemed Dr. Yuichiro Hikari, the head of SciLab, attested that the memory data of two NetNavi witnesses was not tampered with in any way.

"Chaud and Mimic - the twin children of Shuseki Blaze - have both now been adopted by the Hikari family. In related news, IPC has a new president and vice president, and is now working closely with SciLab to-"

"Why do you keep watching that?"

Chaud doesn't startle. He heard the soft footsteps coming even while his attention was firmly fixed on the recording of the news report, but it's only when Dr. Hikari speaks that he cuts it off, banishing the holographic screen.

He doesn't look up as Dr. Hikari carefully sits down next to him. He stares past his PET, at the wall opposite, and the silence in the hallway is loaded with Dr. Hikari's worry.

"You're only tormenting yourself," Dr. Hikari murmurs. He reaches out slowly, but even so, Chaud still flinches, and Dr. Hikari drops his hand with a sad wince. "It's over now, Chaud. You're safe."

Am I? Chaud asks silently.

He doesn't feel safe. It took him this long to realise that he's never felt safe - he's always on guard, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for someone to snap and start yelling at him or something. He's waiting to wake up and discover that this was all dream, that his father wasn't arrested and he'll wake up blind and with a NetNavi he doesn't know, because ProtoMan was deleted for trying to defend him.

Everything's changed, and yet nothing's different. He's Chaud Hikari now, but Chaud Blaze is still that same scared boy who's always walking on ice too thin to hold even his meagre weight, and it doesn't feel like that's ever going to go away.

"Where's Mimic?" Dr. Hikari asks him gently.

Chaud jerks his head toward Mimic's bedroom door - his and Mimic's bedroom door, he should say - and Dr. Hikari blinks at it, then turns back to Chaud and leans forward a little to look at his face.

"You should be asleep, too," Dr. Hikari tells him. "It's your first day of school tomorrow. You don't want to be tired on your first day, do you?"

What difference does it make if he's tired or not? He hardly has any actual energy left, at the moment. Maybe it'll come back at some point - it did for Mimic, though it took months for her, and she still gets drained easily - but for now, he's stuck in this half-apathetic state, constantly on high-alert, watching and waiting.

" . . . You know, you don't have to go full-time right from the start," Dr. Hikari says softly. "You could take it slow, like Mimic did. You don't need to-"

"I'm not Mimic."

Dr. Hikari actually jumps, for all that Chaud barely opened his mouth to speak.

After a moment, Dr. Hikari finds his voice again. "I know that," he says. "I'm just worried about you, that's all. I want you to take things at your own pace, not force yourself to do things."

Chaud grunts, and then gets to his feet. Dr. Hikari blinks at him as he circles around and heads over to Mimic's bedroom door, and he pauses with his fingers on the handle.

" . . . Goodnight, Dr. Hikari," Chaud murmurs.

He goes inside before Dr. Hikari can respond - verbally or otherwise - and heads straight over to Mimic's futon. His and Mimic's futon. He's going to have to get used to this, even if he's still waiting for something to go wrong.

The dull but warm sense of sleep he feels from Mimic flutters for a moment as he crawls back into the futon with her, and her eyes flash in the darkness as she opens them. She's still half-asleep, so she doesn't say anything, and only snuggles up to him when he finally settles down.

After a few moments, her mind fades back into the dull warmth of sleep. It takes a few minutes for Chaud to follow - he's still half-expecting someone to burst in and . . . and . . .

He doesn't really know. He's just too alert to fall asleep, but eventually, his twin sister's warmth lulls him into an uneasy but dreamless sleep.


Chaud's awake long before anyone else in the Hikari house, though Mimic is a close second, along with their Navis, ProtoMan and Arcadia. Ragdoll briefly raises his head from where he's sleeping in his own bed, twitches his ears, and then goes back to sleep with all the grace and dignity that a giant black cat can manage.

Mimic heads downstairs, not bothering to get dressed yet, and Chaud follows her. They haven't been apart since Father was arrested - aside from when Chaud wanders off in the middle of the night to watch the news recording on his PET over and over again - and they intend to keep it that way as much as possible, for as long as they both need to stay together.

Strangely enough, it turns out they're not the only ones up this early. Raika's at the sink in the kitchen, squinting in the half-light, carefully filling up a glass of water. He's staying at the Hikari house while he's in Japan, because he has some time off from his job as a Net Saver in Sharo - a reward for helping to save the world from Duo, though Mimic says that's not the only reward he got, apparently. Something about having ice cream for dessert.

SearchMan, standing on his operator's shoulder, spots them coming into the room and lightly nudges Raika to get his attention.

"Mimic, Chaud," Raika greets them quietly, glancing over at them. "Good morning."

Mimic greets him in return through a yawn that nearly cracks her jaw open, and Chaud sees Raika's expression turn a little unsettled at the sight of her sharp teeth.

No matter how many times you see them, the sharp teeth that Chaud and Mimic gained from Cross Fusing with ProtoMan are unsettling. Their eyes reflect light, too - something called tapeta lucida, a visual effect of their night vision - and their ears are pointed, like the Hylians from Breath of the Wild, because their hearing is extremely sensitive. To put it plainly, they're superhuman cat-children, though the connection between their souls was strengthened thanks to Cross Fusing with Arcadia, and their eyesight was enhanced because of that, too.

Even their closest friends still get a little unnerved by their cat-like abilities, as evidenced by Raika's unsettled look. Though he has more reason to be unsettled than most - Chaud, in a fit of blind rage, bit a hole into his right arm, and that wound is only just starting to heal properly. He forgave Chaud for it, but it's still something that eats away at him whenever he sees Raika struggling to use his right arm or hand.

"You guys want some water?" Raika asks, setting his full glass down on the counter next to the sink.

Chaud feels a silent question from Mimic through their connection, and he responds with an affirmative.

"Water for him," Mimic says, nodding toward Chaud. "I'ma get milk. Water tastes like nothin', don't like it much."

Arcadia's Navi-hologram appears on her shoulder. "You said you didn't like fish at one point, and then you caught and nearly ate a live fish from a pond."

"Didn't like fish before I was a cat," Mimic points out, wandering over to the fridge.

Meanwhile, Chaud silently pads over to the sofa that Raika isn't using as a bed - he can feel Raika's gaze on his back and although it makes his skin prickle with discomfort, he ignores it - and settles down. He stares at the surface of the table in front of the two sofas through half-lidded eyes, only barely paying attention to the sound of running water as Raika fills up a second glass, and the sound of milk splashing into a third glass at the same time.

A few moments later, Mimic comes over and sends a mental nudge to Chaud, and he takes the glass of water from her, holding it with both hands so it doesn't spill as she flops down beside him. A good thing she already put her milk on the table, otherwise it would be all over the floor by now.

Raika doesn't come over. He leans with his back against the counter and watches them out of the corner of his eyes as he drinks. Giving them space, the logical part of Chaud's mind says, though the part that's constantly on the lookout for even the slightest signs of hostility tells him that Raika's staying away because he's angry at them.

The latter is unfortunately louder than the former, but luckily for Chaud, he has a twin sister with a connection that lets her read his mind - she sends him another mental nudge, a reminder that Raika isn't angry and he's just letting them set the pace for interactions, and he believes her more easily than he does his own mind.

Light gradually spills into the room as the sun rises properly. Chaud half-finishes his water and then abandons it on the table, while Mimic downs her entire glass of milk in record time. He can feel its soothing coolness in his throat and stomach, even though it was only Mimic who drank it, and wonders briefly if he should've had milk as well. It might've tasted better than water.

Just as they begin to hear the sounds of the adult Hikaris and Lan - the adult Hikaris' biological son and one of Chaud's closest human friends - waking up, a NetNavi appears on Chaud's shoulder.

Bass, an independent Navi who often shows up to just kind of hang around and sometimes plays Skyrim on the computer in Chaud and Mimic's bedroom, looks at Chaud for a moment or two, eyes flicking up and down as he takes stock of what he sees in front of him.

"You look like shit," Bass bluntly informs him.

Chaud doesn't smile - he hasn't had the energy to smile since he ran away from his father's abuse - but he huffs out a quiet, almost humourless laugh.

Leave it to Bass to be completely tactless, as usual. But it's honestly refreshing, because most people are treating Chaud like fragile glass, being far too careful and far too gentle with him.

Most people, he thinks, glancing at his twin sister, aside from Mimic, ProtoMan, Arcadia, and Bass, of course. He's not sure if Ragdoll counts, since he's a cat (an actual cat, not a cat-human), but he hasn't treated Chaud any different than he usually does, which is to say, he alternates between following Chaud or Mimic around the house, silent in that odd way of his except when he's purring, settling down on either of their laps when they sit down, and in general just being Ragdoll.

"You're gonna go to . . . school today, right?" Bass's expression twists with a little bemusement as he says 'school', clearly unused to the word. He's not used to a lot of human things, and hasn't shown much interest in learning, but he's picked up a few things here and there.

"Right," Chaud murmurs.

"Mm," Bass grunts, eyeing him. "I'm coming with you. I don't give a fuck if you have any protests."

Chaud has no protests, and Bass knows that. He's just saying that to save face, because even if he's finally admitted that he cares about them after months of denying it, he's still Bass. That rough, angry personality will never go away.

So Chaud just nods, and Bass grunts again, then glances down at Chaud's pocket, where his PET is.

" . . . How's the cat doing?" It's not difficult to notice how Bass's tone softens ever-so-slightly when he asks about ProtoMan.

Chaud may be grateful that some of the people around him are still treating him the same as always, but ProtoMan is a different story entirely. He was bullied and tormented almost constantly by Proxy, the NetNavi of Chaud's father, and spent most of his time in the Blaze mansion in a constant state of terror.

Chaud had created the friends program to try and prevent Proxy from getting at ProtoMan, but it only worked if ProtoMan was inside the PET. The Navi-holograms let NetNavis wander around outside their operators' PETs, and Proxy used that loophole to grab ProtoMan and beat him halfway to deletion.

ProtoMan's physical wounds and bruises have been healed since then - both with the use of Recovery chips and natural HP-recovery - but he rarely ever comes out Chaud's PET anymore. Too scared, too hurt by what Proxy did to him. When he does come out, he's trembling constantly, startles at the slightest noise, and never stays out of the PET for more than a few minutes at a time.

He needs gentle treatment, Chaud thinks. The world outside the PET is too much for poor ProtoMan at the moment, and only careful kindness from his little brother - Arcadia, Mimic's primary NetNavi - and his Navi friends will help him to heal.

"He's awake," Chaud says, answering Bass's question. "In the corner, I think. That's . . . where he was, when I saw him."

Bass's eyes narrow. On anyone else, that would look like a glare - but for Bass, it's an expression of worry. Chaud's seen it often enough whenever Bass shows up, so he knows what it looks like by now.

He's not surprised when Bass vanishes from his shoulder, nor is he surprised when he hears quiet murmuring from inside his PET a few moments later. There are occasional pauses between Bass's words, during which ProtoMan responds - in sign language, because he's gone mute again, he always does when he's scared or hurt - and Chaud leaves them to it.

Arcadia glances at Mimic questioningly, and when she nods, he vanishes from her shoulder. His voice comes out Chaud's PET next, along with the faintest rustling of the soft feathers of his wings, no doubt wrapping them around ProtoMan.


They must look fairly odd, as they walk down the street. Three kids - two of them twins, one of whom has different-coloured eyes - and a giant black cat, along with an assortment of odd NetNavis.

MegaMan, Lan's NetNavi, stands on his operator's shoulder, as most Navis have developed the habit of doing with the introduction of the Link PETs' Navi-holograms. He's holding a glass cylinder-like container, in which the pale purple core of a half-Darkloid NetNavi rests, apparently content aside from when it occasionally pulses. That core belonged - or belongs - to MegaMan's dark counterpart, Dark MegaMan, and Dr. Hikari created the container - which is called the heart container - to hold the core and keep it safe.

Arcadia and Bass sit on Ragdoll's back as he pads between Chaud and Mimic, his red lead firmly held in Mimic's hand just in case he tries to run off or something (though he's never tried to, unless you count running toward danger in order to protect Mimic as 'running off'). ProtoMan is crouching on Ragdoll's back too, tense and trembling as his head darts this way and that, but he's not vanishing just yet, and it seems that having Arcadia and Bass on either side of him is at least helping to lessen his nerves.

Then there's Dark Shadow, ProtoMan's shadow-double, which is made up of the drifting tendrils of shadows that accompany ProtoMan at all times. It's an aspect of the Poltergeist Program that lives within ProtoMan, and it's fiercely protective of its host. Against Ragdoll's black fur, it's faintly-rippling body of shadows is just barely visible, the only real sign of its presence being its blank white eyes. It lays beside ProtoMan, apparently calm and still, but Chaud knows it's ready to jump into action the absolute second anything tries to threaten ProtoMan.

All in all, a very odd group, if Chaud has to say so. They're lucky they have special permission from Mimic and Lan's teacher - soon to be Chaud's teacher, too - to arrive later than the other students in DenTech Academy, because otherwise they'd probably get stared at by the other kids on their morning commutes.

As it is, they only get stares from adults and the occasional teenager on their way to middle school or high school. People who recognise Chaud and Mimic from the news report that he can't stop watching over and over again, or people who recognise Chaud, Mimic, and Lan as members of the team who helped to save the world from destruction.

It's easy to tell the difference between the two. Those who recognise all three of them as heroes have an awed look in their eyes, and they see the Navis, too, and they stare with barely-concealed excitement. But the people who recognise Chaud and Mimic as the twin children of Shuseki Blaze whisper to each other, casting furtive glances at them, ignorant of the Navis and Lan, looking at them with pity and faint traces of horror.

He'd rather be stared at because people recognise him as a hero, not as a victim of horrific abuse. The former is extremely embarrassing but pleasant, and the latter is just plain sickening.

Mimic feels the same way. She doesn't like being the centre of attention on a good day, and this is definitely not good attention.

And they'll probably have to put up with this during school, too.


Chaud stands in front of the students of class 6-A - now his classmates, as well as Mimic and Lan's - with Bass standing on his shoulder and casting a powerful glare at anyone who dares to gape at Chaud for longer than he likes. Which is about more than two seconds, so Bass is glaring at pretty much every single student in the class, aside from Mimic and Lan anyway.

"I'm Chaud Hikari," Chaud says. "It's nice to meet you." He bows politely.

Absolute silence greets his words.

As Chaud straightens up, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor so he doesn't have to look anyone in the eyes, he feels a flash of memory from Mimic. She's remembering her own introduction, which was just as awkward and nerve-wracking as Chaud's, just in a different way.

Her - their - classmates had practically bombarded her with questions and words when she made her introduction. They'd already known her before then, but she'd been 'pretending' to be Mimic Lostie at the time, and only made a proper introduction when she became Mimic Hikari.

But in contrast to Mimic's re-introduction, which was noisy and confusing, Chaud's introduction is met with silence and shock. He has no idea how to react to this, and he can feel Mimic's worry as the silence drags on.

After a few intensely-awkward moments, he feels a faint touch on his shoulder - the one that Bass isn't standing on - and nearly flinches.

"Sorry," Ms. Mari murmurs, drawing her hand back. She was just trying to get his attention, that's all. "Would you like to take your seat, now? The one behind Mimic."

How convenient that one of the open seats in the classroom is right behind his twin sister. Chaud wonders if Ms. Mari purposefully changed the seating arrangements to try and make things as easy on him as possible.

He sees Lan's encouraging look at he walks past his now-adoptive brother's desk, and then settles down in the empty seat behind Mimic. She twists around in her own seat to give him a quick grin before turning back to the front, sending a warm kind of emotion through their connection that feels like a 'good job', just without words.

Well, at least he didn't accidentally call himself Chaud Blaze. So he supposes it was a 'good job', in a practical sense.

It takes a few moments for Ms. Mari to get the class's attention - quite a few of them are openly staring at Chaud, despite Bass glaring at them, while others are exchanging wide-eyed glances with each other. But the first lesson begins in earnest, and since Chaud has technically been with Mimic for most of these lessons (when they were in the same body, anyway), it's easy to follow along.

The lessons are both completely different and very similar to what he experienced in the NetBattler's Institute. Different because, as the name suggests, the NetBattler's Institute focused almost exclusively on building up its students' NetBattling skills, helping to raise a generation of stuck-up rich kids whose parents decided they should have a hobby or something. But it's similar, because he learnt stuff like this in the Institute as well as NetBattling skills, since basic education was still required, as with all specialist schools.

But DenTech Academy isn't a specialist school, and it's just full of regular kids like Lan (or maybe he's a bad example) instead of rich kids who think they're better than everyone else simply because they were born into families with lots of money.

Chaud . . . is somewhat ashamed to admit that he used to be like that, too. Or he thinks he may have been like that. But he thought he was better than everyone else because he's a prodigy NetBattler - the fact that he happened to be born rich had nothing to do with it, honestly. And then Mimic accidentally stole his body, and everything changed.

In an odd way, he's glad that Mimic accidentally stole his body. He may have ended up being technically dead for over a year, but he's got his own body now, and he's gained a twin sister, and is closer to ProtoMan than he ever remembers being. Arcadia, too, because he's Chaud's secondary NetNavi, and they get along just as well as Chaud gets along with ProtoMan.

The lessons continue until break, and Chaud braces himself for an onslaught of questions from his new classmates. But Mimic plants herself on his desk - she likes sitting on tables for some reason, and absolutely no one knows why - and grins with all her teeth, flashing their sharpness for everyone to see, and that's enough to scare away any curious kids.

It helps that Lan hops into the now-empty seat next to Chaud, too. Maylu, another of Lan's friends who's also Chaud's friend by proxy, stands to one side next to Lan, another barrier between Chaud and the rest of the class. Then there's Dex - the largest student in the class, and whose looks suit a bully more than a friend - who provides an effective barrier all on his own.

Chaud sits back a little to let Ragdoll jump up onto his lap. The cat circles for a moment, and then settles down with a loud purr, and Chaud looks around at his friends, carefully avoiding eye-contact with any of their other classmates.

"So what's it like living in a full house?" Maylu asks Lan.

Intense relief floods through Chaud, making Mimic glance at him. He'd been worried Maylu and Dex would ask him something, or try to talk to him, and when he inevitably couldn't summon the will or energy to respond with more than a few words, they'd just get annoyed with him.

But no, they're talking to Lan instead. That's a huge relief. It means Chaud doesn't have to deal with accidentally annoying people because he doesn't want to talk much at the moment.

"It's not really as chaotic as some of those TV shows makes it out to be," Lan muses, leaning his elbows on the desk that isn't his and resting his chin on his hands. "There's a lotta people, obviously, but I like it! Honestly, when I think about how it used to just be me, Mom, and Dad, or sometimes just me and Mom, it seems kinda empty."

Dex snorts with an amused laugh. "I couldn't imagine having that many people in my house," he says. "It's enough with just Chisao and my dad. We'd go nuts if we had- wait, how many people are in your house right now?"

"Six humans, five NetNavis, one cat," Chaud murmurs, speaking without thinking.

He winces immediately, worried that he's drawn too much attention to himself, but Mimic speaks up next, still with that scary grin on her face.

"And a mouse," she says. "Li'l tiny mouse that ain't got a name."

"Mouse?" Maylu blinks at Mimic, looking puzzled. "You mean that one you did for the summer project? You still have it?"

Mimic giggles to herself. Meanwhile, Chaud can't help feeling relieved that she spoke up, because she's drawn away any potential attention that the others might've given him. He sends her a faint wave of gratitude, because even without their connection, he could easily tell that she did that on purpose. Mimic responds with a little mental nudge of acknowledgement.

"She basically forgot to release it," Lan explains, giving his sister a fondly exasperated look. "And by the time she remembered, Arcadia said the mouse was already too used to living in a cage, and would probably just die if it was released. So, yeah, she still has it."

"You're keeping it and you haven't even given it a name?" Dex, for some reason, looks almost offended at that.

Mimic thinks for a moment. "Mouse," she eventually says.

"What?" Lan stares at her blankly.

"Gonna call it Mouse," Mimic clarifies.

"Um . . ." Maylu presses her fingers together in front of her face and frowns at Mimic. "That's not very creative, Mimic."

"Ragdoll cat called Ragdoll," Mimic points out, gesturing to Ragdoll on Chaud's lap. "Why not a mouse called Mouse?"

"But wasn't Ragdoll named by some toddler who misnamed him by accident?" Lan asks. "C'mon, Mimic, at least try and come up with a decent name."

"She called one of her horses in Breath of the Wild Blue because it's blue," Chaud says.

Lan, Maylu, and Dex look at him, and he automatically tenses a little. But after a moment, they turn their shocked gazes back to Mimic, who shrugs and cheerfully swings her legs without a care in the world.

" . . . Your naming skills are appalling," Maylu informs her.

"Yep," Mimic agrees, with zero shame whatsoever. "Mouse the mouse it is!"

"Mimic, no . . ." Lan groans.

"Mimic, yes."

Chaud still doesn't have the energy to smile, but he can still feel amusement, and Mimic can sense it. She grins at him, a much nicer one than the scary one she's been using to ward off any overly-curious classmates, and he slowly blinks back at her.

All in all . . . his first day at DenTech Academy isn't a disaster.


His first therapy session with Mizuki Moto, on the other hand, is another matter entirely.

These sessions are meant to be private, but given Chaud and Mimic's connection, that's very nearly impossible. But he shares pretty much everything with Mimic anyway, and Mizuki already knows about their connection because she's been Mimic's therapist for just over a year now, although she's only known about Mimic's true identity for the last few months.

Dr. Hikari takes Chaud to the local hospital to meet Mizuki, and they go into the therapy room that Mimic goes into. She's at home right now, and they're using their distance to at least try and get some semblance of privacy (during the session, anyway, but afterwards is fair game for sharing).

Chaud had declined Mimic's offer to let him take Ragdoll to the session. He also didn't take the ProtoMan plushie, and he kind of regrets not having anything with him, because now his hands are idle and empty and it doesn't really sit well with him. He doesn't even have his PET, because the privacy rules of therapy sessions prevent NetNavis from going with their operators into the sessions (unless there's a good reason for an exception to be made).

He hopes ProtoMan doesn't get too scared while he's in therapy. Bass is with ProtoMan, to keep him company while Chaud's not there, and there's always Dark Shadow, too. But Chaud would rather have ProtoMan with him, and he doesn't feel okay leaving his NetNavi, even if he's just in the waiting room with Dr. Hikari.

Mizuki goes over the usual stuff with therapy, but only briefly. She knows he already knows most of this, and was technically a part of Mimic's early therapy sessions, when she was still pretending to be Chaud. Unfortunately, that means there's more time for Mizuki to ask him things, and he's . . . not really sure he wants to answer.

"How have you been since you started living with the Hikaris?" Mizuki asks him.

Chaud notices that she doesn't refer to them as his new family or anything. Maybe she can tell that he's not quite there yet, even though he's Chaud Hikari now.

He opens his mouth, but only gets a faint croak out before snapping it shut again. How is he supposed to put what he's been feeling into words? This constant state of being on high-alert, watching and waiting for something to go wrong, constantly on-guard for no reason?

He can't explain that. Not with words, not with sign language. It's not something that can be explained with anything but feelings, and there's only two people who can sense his emotions - Mimic, who wouldn't be able to describe what Chaud's feeling either, and Arcadia, who won't talk about it because Chaud asked him not to.

Mizuki blinks at him slowly, and even though she looks perfectly calm and relaxed, he still cringes, half-expecting her to sigh in annoyance or tell him to answer her question or else-

No, she's not like that. He knows that from Mimic's sessions with her.

It's just . . . hard to remember that without Mimic here to remind him.

"We don't have to talk about that if you don't want to," Mizuki says, and Chaud lets out a quiet breath of relief. "Is there anything you do want to talk about?"

"ProtoMan," comes out before Chaud can even think about it.

He's surprised at himself, but Mizuki doesn't even twitch. She merely nods and smiles, as if she really isn't bothered that Chaud would rather talk about his primary Navi than himself.

"Go on, then," Mizuki gently encourages him. "Where would you like to start?"

Chaud takes a deep breath, steadying his beating heart. "I . . . I got him a few days after my mother died . . ."

Mizuki listens to him, and asks questions whenever he pauses. He finds himself strangely willing to answer, for all that he couldn't respond to the first one she asked him. Maybe talking about someone else - someone he loves dearly - is easier than talking about himself.

She doesn't laugh when he says that ProtoMan raised him, either, though most people would find the idea of a NetNavi raising a human to be a very strange concept indeed. She laughs a little when he tells her about the ridiculous things ProtoMan has gotten into the habit of doing since he became a cat-Navi, and expresses her interest when he describes some of the battles in which ProtoMan went Poltergeist.

He spends his first therapy session with Mizuki Moto talking about ProtoMan, and she doesn't tell him he can't do that, or make him talk about himself.

It's . . . kind of nice, he thinks. Also a relief. Maybe he'll be able to talk about himself at some point, but for now, he's okay with just telling Mizuki about ProtoMan, for as long as she'll let him.