Read Novel Full side story 1 part1
Ig's Spring Break
Part 1
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Igubadi-Nguna-Mugu's day begins when Sago Kinemitsu wakes up. When Ig's small ears catch the rustling sound of him moving around in the futon, she sticks her face out of the nest box attached to the perch in the corner of the room and sniffs the air with her nose. After obtaining peace of mind from confirming that there's no "bad guy" smell, Ig runs down the perch and climbs on top of Sago's head.
"Mmm, good morning, Ig."
"ChiChi."
In response to Sago's sleepy voice, Ig vigorously pulls on his hair. Sago, the big boss of the group that Ig currently belongs to, always starts his day by washing his face and brushing his teeth. Ig wonders why he doesn't eat and instead makes foam in his mouth with a stick, but she knows that Sago is a strange and scatterbrained person. So she pays it no mind, and plays with his hair while he brushes his teeth. After brushing his teeth, Sago lies down and watches TV. Ig peeks her head out from behind his shoulder and watches it with him. Until a little while ago, Sago watched TV while making breakfast by psychokinetically operating a kitchen knife and frying pan and only glancing at the ingredients, but he had lost interest in doing that. Watching the rapidly changing colors on the TV was more to Ig's tastes anyway.
After that, breakfast is then served. This morning, Ig's meal is monkey food with leftover apple slices from yesterday and a spoonful of honey. Sago gets mad when bits of food are dropped on his shoulder or head, so Ig has to leave her "safe zone" when it's mealtime and climb down onto the table to eat. During the meal, Sago’s eyes were nailed to the television. He'd been doing this since last week. He also occasionally records it. He does this so he can have a recording of their appearance on TV as a keepsake, and also to confirm how far the news has spread.
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The British National Broadcasting Station reported on the battle off the coast of Ireland, while the entire battle for Tokyo was filmed and reported on by Japan's public broadcasting station. At first, when the television stations heard that a huge unidentified object had appeared out at sea, they sent out the helicopters in order to confirm the details. A satellite then confirmed that the object was an enormous floating water ball, and that it was moving toward land at a speed of about 20km/h. What was happening should've been impossible, but since they couldn't say that it's completely impossible, they held back on dispatching any military forces. If it looked like something that's easy to understand, such as a dragon or alien, the military would have moved quickly, albeit with some confusion. However, it's actually a huge mass of water. It's partly realistic, and partially unrealistic. Is it a spontaneous natural phenomenon, an unknown creature, or something to do with the occult or aliens? It's impossible to figure out.
Before the helicopter arrived, a mysterious figure in a black robe appeared from the sea in front of the 600m-class water ball off the coast of Ireland. Although it was difficult to grasp the details from the image taken from directly above by the satellite, it was possible to immediately guess that the black robe and water ball seem to be fighting. Each time the black robe moved his hand, an invisible impact hit the water ball. The water ball targeted the black robe with a water tentacle that had a tsunami-like current, but this was defended against by something invisible.
When news helicopter finally arrived, and the reporter excitedly shouted "It's like an 'Invisible Titan' and a 'Water Monster' are fighting each other!" These names rapidly spread through the media, so now the mysterious person in a black robe is known worldwide as "Invisible Titan (I.T)" and the enormous water ball is known as the "Water Monster (W.M)". In Japan, they're called "Titan" and "Super Water-Ball", respectively.
Some people criticized Titan, saying that the Super Water-Ball seems harmless and they provoked it by attacking first, but that criticism all but disappeared when Titan used their invisible ability to protect the news helicopter from an attack by the Super Water-Ball. Even so, the argument that "The Super Water-Ball got angry because Titan attacked it" still persists.
Neither Titan nor the Super Water-Ball left any sort of message behind. The meaning behind their battle can only be left to the imagination.
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At the same time, off the coast of Tokyo, a 50m-class was being challenged by three mysterious individuals. It's speculated that they are people who are of the same standpoint as Titan, since they are wearing the same black outfit, act hostile to the Super Water-Ball, and disappeared in a black whale, exactly the same as Titan did. Surveillance camera images and eye-witness accounts tell us that the three arrived there from Koto City, Tokyo1 via a giant black bird that flew there at high speeds. However, either accidentally or on purpose, what the three were doing before that wasn't caught by any surveillance cameras, and thus their identities remain a mystery. Many people come and go from Koto City. If you change your outfit, you can easily get lost in the crowd. And because the mask was in the way, facial recognition analysis was impossible.
The three fought against the Super Water-Ball using fire, ice, and teleportation and managed to destroy it. The news helicopters and satellites weren't able to get a clear image due to the angles and all the steam, but they were also able to confirm the presence of what looks like either a small animal or possibly a small robot as well. They are often called "the mysterious people in black", which is also due to the black whale and bird in addition to their black clothing.
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And that’s all the information that's covered by the public broadcast reports. Anything more than that, such as conspiracy theories, heated debates, and other extreme points of view were regulated to gossip magazines, variety shows, radio talk-shows, and, of course, the internet. Sago has been using his psychokinesis to spy on the Japan Self-Defense Force, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, the National Diet2, and various television stations, and through that learned that none of their investigations have discovered Amaterasu. He knew that they hadn't been exposed, but he was still paranoid about it, so he continued watching TV to make sure there weren't any sudden reveals of their true identity or anything. Still, considering that for the first three days after the event he was essentially glued to the TV, he's in a much better state now than he was then.
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At the end of breakfast, Sago was satisfied and looked away from the TV. He stood up and slowly picked up a fruit knife, when suddenly he tripped over his own feet.
"AHHH! IT HURTS! IT HURTS! PLEASE, SOMEONE, HELP!"
Ig quickly rushed over to heal Sago, who had ‘inadvertently’ stabbed himself deeply in the thigh with the fruit knife when he fell over. While opening three individual packages of gum syrup3 (her current favorite) as a reward for Ig for healing him, the "scatterbrained" Sago rubbed his thigh. Sago is the reliable boss of the group that rescued Ig, but he seemed to be rather clumsy and invariably ended up injured at least once every two days or so.
These "accidents" happened so frequently they had become part of their regular routine. Once it was settled, Sago changed into his bar-master outfit, left the living space, entered the Amanoiwato storefront, and began lightly cleaning. After that, he sat on a chair with his legs crossed, and began practicing the acoustic guitar. "I practiced the guitar when I was young in order to still be cool when I become an old man in his mid-forties twenty years later"4, or something like that. It lacks skill and is extremely awkward, but Ig sings and swings her body, matching the Sago's slow plucking of the melody. Ig liked Sago’s song. Even though it didn't sound good, even to her ears, Sago was working hard and putting his soul into it. And every day, little by little, he was improving. Hearing it made Ig happy.
After about an hour of practice, Sago put away the guitar and started reading a light novel about superpowers. After the Super Water-Ball event, sharp booksellers began actively pushing superpower-related books. This strategy seemed to work; the fact that they're regularly sold out must mean they're selling well. But the book Sago is reading was borrowed from Kaburagi-san. While reading it, he occasionally mutters "I see" or "Ah, so it develops like this," and/or jots down a quick note. Ig had nothing to do, so she returned to her nest box for a nap.
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Footnotes:
1: Koto City is a ward in Tokyo that's located along the coast of Tokyo Bay ⇒
2: National Diet=Japan's government, similar to a parliament or congress
3: It's a kind of sugar syrup that Japanese people use in their drinks instead of artificial sweeteners. Image ⇒ Gum Syrup
4: If this is meant to be a reference to something, I can't find it. Here's the original Japanese & romaji if you want to search yourself: (二十年後四十半ばのおっさんになった時、若い頃ギターやってたアピールするための練習) (ni juu nen go yon juu nakaba no ossan ni natta toki , wakai koro gitaa yatteta apiiru suru tame no renshuu)
I made a map and put markers on all the places in Japan that are mentioned in the novel. You can view it