The Claw Machine and Homu's House (Part 1)
“Oh! Could this place be a department store?!”
Turning a corner in the corridor, a vast space opened up before the group. Rows of shelves stood arrayed as neatly as dominoes, stacked with all sorts of goods.
“I didn't expect there'd be a mall this big…”
Mei wore a look of amazement too, and just then Bronya, as if sensing something, suddenly took off running into the distance.
“Bronya? Where are you going?”
Mei reached out to grab her, but Bronya's figure darted in among the shelves and vanished.
“Let's hurry and follow her — a place like a department store is bound to be hiding lots of zombies!”
Kiana and Mei hurried after her. Bronya's small frame wove between the shelves, and it took the two of them a great deal of effort just to barely keep up with her pace.
“Phew, finally found you. Bronya, what's the matter?”
“Here… so many Homu.”
Accompanied by cheerful music, Mei looked ahead. Rows of brightly decorated claw machines flashed with colorful lights, and in the glass cases, Homu of every color sat quietly on the racks, striking all kinds of cute poses.
“Wow, a UFO Catcher[1] full of Homu! How wonderful, Bronya~”
Seeing such a lovely sight, Mei's mood brightened too. She briskly walked up to the claw machine and gazed longingly at the plushies inside, her heart seeming to return to childhood as an innocent smile spread across her face.
“Heh heh~ this one's easy! This is my specialty! Leave it to the pro!”
At this Kiana stepped forward, walking up to the machine with a confident grin.
“Oh~ I didn't know Kiana had this skill~”
“Hmph hmph! Of course!”
Seeing how self-assured Kiana was, Mei took out her wallet and pulled a stack of coins from it, ready to hand them to Kiana. But to her surprise, Kiana was crouched by the base of the machine, fiddling with something!
“Wait! Kiana, what are you doing?”
“Setting a detonator~ To blow this box open, obviously~”
“Stop that right now!” Mei hurriedly yanked Kiana away. “This is a claw machine! You put money in and win by grabbing them with skill!”
Mei hurriedly explained to Kiana how a claw machine worked, and only then did Kiana understand, pulling out the detonator she'd stuck under the machine's base.
“Oh~ so that's how it is. You use this joystick to control the claw inside and grab these Homu…” Kiana looked at Mei with an “ah, I see” expression.
“Kiana, have you never played this before?”
“Of! Of course I have!… This kind of thing is a piece of cake!”
Kiana took the coins from Mei's hand and fed them into the coin slot. The machine's music suddenly quieted, and the colorful lights turned into plain illumination.
Kiana gripped the joystick, and the claw slid along with a whir as she worked the controls.
“Now!”
A flash sparked in Kiana's eyes, and she raised her hand high and slammed it down on the grab button!
Clatter, clatter…
But the claw touched nothing at all, swiping through empty air a couple of times before rising back up…
“Ah! That was a fluke… Again!”
Clatter, clatter… snap!
Another empty-handed return, but at least this time it had brushed the plushie's body.
“Ha… ha ha… what a naughty little thing~”
Kiana gave a bitter smile but didn't give up. As if in a fit of humiliated rage, she jammed the coins into the machine…
Clatter, clatter… snap!
“‘snap’, my foot! Screw this!”
Finally, after three failures, Kiana could no longer contain the fury in her heart and blew up!
“Kiana, calm down!” Mei hurriedly grabbed the baseball bat Kiana had already drawn, certain that the next second she'd smash it into the machine without hesitation.
“This really is hard. Kiana, you should just give up — that's the last of the money…”
“…Impossible. I actually got beaten by a thing like this?! I can't accept it!”
Under Mei's soothing, Kiana finally settled down, but the fury in her heart turned into deep frustration, and she knelt dejectedly before the machine… In the end, though, that dejection only darkened further, and Kiana once again chose her original method, sticking the detonator back under the machine.
“In that case, the only option left is to use the ultimate measure and blow it open!”
“I said stop! If you blow it up, the Homu inside will get wrecked too!”
Mei hugged Kiana tightly, trying to stop her from doing something stupid, and the two of them tussled back and forth in front of the machine — when suddenly the machine started up again on its own.
“System activated. Calculation commencing…”
“Bronya?”
Mei and Kiana both turned around at the same time. Bronya stood beside the machine, calmly studying the Homu inside, and as if drawn by some force, she placed her hand on the joystick.
Clatter, clatter…
“Deviation-bias calculation, 16° UP.”
Clatter, clatter…
The claw moved slowly along as Bronya muttered something to herself without stopping, operating the joystick meticulously, as if by precise calculation.
Kiana and Mei stared unblinkingly at Bronya, watching her movements in rapt absorption, until at last the claw came to a stop directly above one Homu's head.
“Deviation calculation complete. Success rate 98.45%. Final stage commencing.”
Bronya pressed the grab button, and the mechanical claw slowly descended, closing down over the Homu's head!
Once the claw had a firm grip, it swayed as it lifted the Homu up. In that tense moment even Kiana and Mei couldn't help swallowing hard…
“Roar roar roar!”
Just then, several zombies suddenly burst out from the side of the machine. Mei hurriedly shoved Bronya out of the way, narrowly avoiding their attack, while the zombies slammed heavily into the claw machine with a huge crash.
“Argh! I knew it! Every time something like this happens, the zombies show up to ruin it!!”
Kiana raised her bat and charged in too, flailing wildly through the zombies as if venting all her earlier resentment. Luckily there weren't very many of them, and under Kiana's fury they were wiped out in an instant.
After the battle, Bronya silently looked at the machine. Because of the zombies's collision, the Homu she'd grabbed had been shaken loose and dropped — and that had been her very last chance…
[1] A UFO Catcher is a popular type of claw machine made by SEGA Sammy. Many arcades in Japan have these specific claw machines. They're so ubiquitous that they've essentially become the standard claw machine.
The Claw Machine and Homu's House (Part 2)
Seven-colored lights and soothing music echoed through the empty mall as Bronya hugged the plushie in her arms and silently watched the Homu inside the machine.
“Don't be sad~ Since that's how it turned out, all we can do is treasure the Homu we have now~”
Mei stroked Bronya's hair as she comforted her.
“Mm…”
Bronya gave a small nod, then looked up once more at the Homu in the case.
“See, that's why blowing it open is the simplest way! Why go to all that trouble.”
Kiana still hadn't let go of her earlier idea, looking at Bronya and Mei in confusion.
“Rather than destroy these Homu's home, it's better to let them live here in peace. Let's get going — that battle just now will probably draw even more zombies.”
Mei patted Bronya on the shoulder. Bronya understood Mei's meaning too, and turned to leave.
“Ahh~ I've really had enough of these sudden, forced battles…”
Seeing Mei and Bronya's dejected faces, Kiana started to feel conflicted too. She glanced back at the machine, and the frustration from her earlier failure welled up again.
Just then Kiana noticed she still hadn't removed the detonator she'd stuck under the machine, and hurried to turn back and clean it up. Mei, walking ahead, noticed Kiana's action and looked at her in confusion.
Suddenly, a batch of zombies surged out from behind Kiana, but Kiana was still absorbed in removing the detonator's fuse wire. Seeing this, Mei rushed over, shouting for Kiana to watch her back!
By the time Kiana noticed the zombies, they were only a step away! Kiana hurriedly drew her pistol and fired, but she was a beat too slow — a zombies pounced on her, jaws gaping wide to bite down.
Kiana stepped back, lost her balance, and sat down hard on the ground. At the critical moment, a bullet punched through the head of the oncoming zombies — thankfully Mei had arrived in time. Bronya immediately joined the fight as well.
Finally, after a short while, another wave of zombies corpses lay on the ground, and Kiana wiped the sweat from her brow.
“Phew! That was close… I almost got hurt.”
Just then, Kiana suddenly felt as though her hand were pressing on something. One thought and she instantly realized what it was…
“Get down!”
Kiana lunged, dragging Mei and Bronya down to the ground with her!
An instant later a violent explosion rang out behind them, and a wave of heat rushed over Kiana!
“Kiana! What's going on?!”
“Ahaha… when I fell over just now I accidentally hit the detonator's trigger button~”
“‘accidentally’ my foot…”
And at that, Bronya just hugged Homu and stared silently at the blown-apart claw machine…
“The Homu…”
Seeing Bronya's dejected look, Mei fixed Kiana with a reproachful stare.
“It's not my fault! It was all those zombies…” Suddenly Kiana seemed to spot something in the wreckage of the machine and hurriedly changed the subject. “Look, isn't something glinting in the debris?”
Kiana ran up and found a metal doll among the rubble.
“What is this thing… it's heavy!”
Kiana lifted the metal doll and immediately felt the weight of it in her hands… But upon seeing this metal doll, a subtle change came over Bronya's eyes.
“This is… a limited-edition metal Homu…”
“Limited edition… huh?! You mean it's something rare?”
Kiana looked at the Homu doll in her hands in surprise. What an inhuman design — how could an ordinary child ever carry something this heavy, like an iron ball!
“They say that because the craftsmanship and cost are extremely complex, only three exist in the whole world — a super-rare variety…”
Kiana stared at it dubiously. However you looked at it, it seemed more like a design error that couldn't sell and was forced out of production — but since Bronya believed in it so firmly, she'd just let it be so…
“Well~ I guess we did get a metal Homu out of it… I really don't know whether to thank these damn zombies…”
“But the other Homu…”
Bronya looked back at the other Homu plushies scattered on the ground. Because of the explosion's impact, most of them had suffered fairly severe damage to their limbs. Kiana seemed to feel a twinge of guilt too, and started to say something, then swallowed it back.
“This place is the Homu's home. Let's build them a new home so they can live here together again.”
Mei gathered the Homu one by one into her arms, carefully collecting the broken pieces. She had Bronya take out the needle and thread left over from the home-economics classroom — originally meant for mending the Homu in Bronya's hands, but now unexpectedly put to good use.
Kiana and Bronya were sent off to find materials to build the Homu's new home. Though Kiana looked thoroughly unwilling, thinking it was her own fault, she had no choice but to comply.
“Let's find some useless packing boxes or cardboard. This mall's so big, it'll be easy.”
Watching the silent Bronya, Kiana awkwardly forced out a remark, but Bronya paid her no mind and went off searching on her own.
Ahh… what a prickly little girl!
Kiana thought this, glancing around boredly at her surroundings.
“This mall really is strange. It's so big, yet there are hardly any zombies around, and the power system is even running this smoothly…”
Kiana muttered to herself, and just then a metallic clang came from not far off, followed by a powerful explosion and clamor!
“That direction—?!”
Kiana's heart lurched, and she ran toward the sound — that was exactly the way Bronya had gone!
Sure enough, after rounding a few shelves, what appeared before her was the mall's main entrance, with a huge wave of zombies pouring in. At the entrance hung large promotional banners and grand-opening streamers. It turned out the Honkai had struck before the mall even opened, and the crowds outside had turned into zombies!
Kiana clicked her tongue. Right now Bronya was fighting off the huge wave of zombies all alone. Kiana rushed forward and grabbed Bronya to pull her back and retreat, but there were too many zombies, and their retreat path was gradually being blocked off.
Seeing they were about to be surrounded, Kiana came up with a plan on the spot and shouted at Bronya: “There's no way we can wipe out this many zombies! Bronya, use the mech to blow the ceiling down and block them off!”
As she advanced, Kiana toppled the shelves on either side to form barriers blocking the zombies's path, while Bronya summoned her mech and aimed it at the ceiling, readying a cannon blast.
But at the very instant of firing, a zombies suddenly leapt out from behind Bronya and pounced. Bronya's small frame couldn't react in time and she was knocked to the ground, the Homu doll in her hands flying loose!
At the same moment, the fully charged mech unleashed an intense beam. The beam struck the ceiling with a huge blast, and the entire department store shuddered!
The instant the mech finished firing, it grabbed the zombies off of Bronya and hurled it several meters away. Bronya scrambled up, wanting to retrieve the Homu, but it was too late!
The concrete blocks of the ceiling and several floors above came screaming down onto the surging horde of zombies. At that moment Kiana threw herself toward the Homu and snatched it up. But there was no time to escape the danger zone!
“Rrrumble!”
Amid the deafening roar, part of the department store collapsed, and the massive reinforced-concrete blocks sealed off the zombies's path completely.
“Kiana! Bronya!”
Mei rushed over and froze at the scene before her. Just then a loosening sound came from among the nearby rubble, and a huge mechanical arm reached out from the concrete.
“Ahh~~ so close! We almost died!”
Through the opening the mechanical arm had dug out, Kiana climbed up pulling Bronya with her. It turned out that in the moment of crisis, Bronya had used the mech as a shield to block the falling debris…
“Mm-hm~ that's just about it~”
Mei looked at the Homu's new home with a look of accomplishment. Built from cardboard boxes and decorated with ribbons of every color, it now held the mended Homu, with the limited-edition metal Homu resting quietly among the others.
“Isn't this something really valuable? Are you sure you're not taking it?”
Kiana looked at Bronya with a “what a waste” expression. But Bronya just shook her head and hugged the yellow Homu in her arms tightly.
“This one is enough.”
