According to certain statistics,
if a sixth grade male and female fight,
the female has a higher probability of winning.
Kyoko, don't forget to eat your carrots, too.
I hate red stuff!
You'll never grow any bigger if you're picky about foods.
Yes I will!
Of course you won't!
You'll stay like that forever.
She had the nerve to call me a shrimp and look down on me,
so now I'm gonna collect tons of metabugs and make her pay!
But where do you plan on collecting them from?
I'll harvest the metabugs from an Illegal.
Just like Isako did.
Is that story even true?
Yasako and Fumie were there too.
I had Akira "obtain" their chat logs.
That's called wiretapping.
No, it was "information gathering".
So how about this?
According to the info I've obtained,
Isako struck out like this,
and stuck her hands inside the Illegal.
Then she extracted metabugs out of it.
Really?
Yup, that's what they said.
And then it hit me.
Illegals are made of metabugs!
It's not like that...
So how about this?
First, we have to capture an Illegal somewhere.
Then we stick our hands inside it,
and scoop all the metabugs out!
Piece of cake, isn't it?
I've already started practicing!
Watch.
How do you intend to find an Illegal?
Illegal, Illegal...
What the hell are you—
Poop!
I'm not poop! I'm Daichi!
Found anything?
Nope.
Hey kid, have you ever seen one?
You know, a black creature, or something.
I have.
What?!
The obsolete Space has been activated.
Hmm...
Something's going on here.
Here?
Poop, poop!
She says it's here.
But there's a new Space here.
Satchii must've already formatted it.
Poop, poop!
What? With a fishing pole?
Poop, poop, poop!
They fished it out of a black hole?
A pet was infected by an Illegal?!
Daichi, you can understand what she's saying?
Denpa, did you say something?
Eh, no. Never mind.
But if it's already been formatted, it might be too late—
What is she doing?
No idea.
Oh, she's moving again.
Hey, where are you taking—
It's an obsolete Space.
How could she have known?
A black hole!
You didn't do anything that could've made Yasako suspicious, did you?
Nah, only Megabaa was there.
Hmm, what about the bait?
The bait?
Oh well.
OW!
Daichi!
I'm not Daichi! I'm Poop!
See, now wasn't my gag incredibly funny?
More like incredibly boring.
D-Daichi! You've got a bite!
What?!
It only bit the hook.
It escaped because you didn't add any bait.
Run for it!
C'mon, let's just give up.
After all, Illegals are living creatures, right?
Don't you feel sorry for them, Daichi? To stick your hands inside them...
Daichi!
What now? Shut up.
I'm not gonna say the same gag twice.
This is...!
There's no doubt about it: it's an Illegal.
Oh no!
What's wrong?
Illegals can only survive in an obsolete Space!
We have to find an obsolete Space as soon as possible!
What's wrong?
The water is expanding by itself...
...around this little thing!
This is...
...an obsolete Space!
But it looks just like water.
This cyberwater is nothing less than an obsolete Space.
I wonder what it is exactly?
Sometimes it looks like water, and other times it looks like fog.
Who cares about that!
I've captured an Illegal!
I-It's getting bigger!
Daichi, it's grown bigger!
I just said that.
Not that, the Illegal!
It's true...
That means the number of metabugs inside it has increased, too!
Perfect!
I'm gonna feed it and get tons of metabugs!
Daichi sure does want to make it grow.
I have a bad feeling about this.
Hey, Daichi!
Can't you hear me calling you?
Daichi, it's dinner time!
Daichi.
Oh, you're here.
Go right on ahead upstairs.
Sorry for intruding.
Grow bigger!
And then I'll stick my hands inside you, and...
What's that? Fish food?
I scraped some textures from here and there.
It looks like real fish food.
This guy will eat anything, from building to road textures.
Looks like it prefers the red ones.
Well, do you like it?
He really did grow bigger—
Little fishy...
I see.
So the Space gets larger and larger.
How cute.
You wanna try it too?
I'm the only one it loves.
It's very loyal.
I regret that I have to shatter it, but it's for metabugs. I have no choice.
All right, Denpa.
I'm off to scrape some textures.
You can collect usable pieces under one condition.
For example, see here?
There's a boundary between an obsolete and a new Space.
Usually, the encode changes in these spots.
The new Space updates the broken data every five minutes.
But the obsolete Space does it every minute.
This difference creates an encode incompatibility.
So when you hit a spot like this,
a glitch and a fog appear.
That's because they're out of sync.
Now watch this.
This is where the real skill comes in.
I face my glasses towards the boundary between the Spaces,
I cover them with my hand,
I hit it...
And update!
What's that?!
The old and the new server make a double identification,
therefore, the positions don't correspond.
Y-You're amazing, Daichi!
Yup! If it's about using tricks to wreck Spaces, I'm your man.
You've collected quite a few.
But not enough.
There aren't many reds today.
My poor little fishy!
R-Really?
It doesn't like the black ones.
It makes a face as if they stink, and doesn't touch them.
Oh, over there!
A completely red mail box!
And there's an obsolete Space right next to it.
This time you're gonna help me.
If there's two of us, we can get twice as many.
Got it?
I'll count to three, then you uncover your glasses.
Remember, remove them at the count of three.
Okay, Daichi.
One, two, three...
Update!
What's...
I told you to uncover them at the count of three.
Sorry, Daichi.
Okay, let's try it again.
One, two, three!
Update!
Huh?
That's weird.
There's no broken data.
Don't tell me this is—
Me, Satchii!
Why does this keep happening?!
I haven't seen Daichi around these past few days.
That's why the city is so quiet.
Let's do our research now.
Eh?
Daichi?
He looks so worn out.
You've grown so big!
So your body's full of metabugs, huh?
D-Daichi,
I think you'd best not let it get any bigger.
Besides, if you remove the metabugs in here,
your house's Space will break.
Back then, at the station, Isako did the same—
That's true,
but what do you really want to say?
Let's get rid of it some place where nobody can see us.
I'm not gonna dump it.
But I have decided to take it out of the house.
I'll remove the metabugs somewhere else.
Good idea!
So please, don't feed it any more.
I know, I know.
Anyway, come by tomorrow morning.
My little fishy...
Did they give you the medicine?
Don't push yourself.
Okay.
I won't take your glasses away.
But promise me that you won't go anywhere dangerous—
What do you want?!
Obsolete Space is expanding all over town.
What?
D-Daichi...
That's all obsolete Space?!
He... He ate it!
What on earth is going on?
Another Space probe has disappeared!
That one!
What's that stuff?
They're obsolete Spaces.
The Illegal grew that big all on its own!
I'm grateful to see such a scene!
This is why it's good to live for a long time!
Do you think that the Illegal could infiltrate a cybernavi?
I won't know unless I investigate it.
Could you make a vaccine?
If I had a sample of it.
What can we do?
Will Daichi be arrested?
Well, the situation's totally out of hand, so it's kinda likely.
He might be arrested for infringement of Article Two, Section Two, of the Cyberspace Law.
Oh no!
Please, you must help Daichi!
Help, you say?
So you're formally commissioning me?
B-But we're kinda short on metabugs...
That's not what I want.
Grovel to me!
You have to grovel to me and beg!
That's what I want in return!
Wh-What are you talking about?
D-Denpa!
I beg you!
You're not enough.
I want Daichi to grovel to me, too.
But Fumie... the poor guy!
Let's forgive them!
Where's Daichi?
I think he's somewhere near his home.
This time I'll have him crawl at my feet.
So, this is the hypocenter.
Hey, is that fish yours?
That fish!
Is that your fish?!
Hey, Ma'am...
Are you after my little fish?
I'm not gonna give you any metabugs!
WHY YOU!
What the hell did you do?!
I'll arrest you!
Fumie, that's...
There it is!
It's an Illegal!
Megabaa!
I'm gonna watch the show, too.
W-Wait!
Megabaa, let us in!
The damage is spreading everywhere.
Is that...
an Illegal?
How can it be so huge?
Hey, attack that thing!
Hey! Why the hell are you hesitating?
Don't shoot! Stop!
It's no good; if he's hit now...
Stop! At this range you'll...
Shoot! Shoot it already!
Damn...
It broke again!
This time it's a blatant crime!
No!
I don't know why...
I don't know why, but...
this totally pisses me off!
A-An Illegal?
It can't be...
I've never seen such a humongous Illegal before!
Daichi!
Where are you?
Come on out!
You're Ken's friends, right?
D-Daichi!
I caught him red-handed.
A-Arrested?
Long time no see,
Megabaa.
So you two know each other?
Tsk...
No return signal.
What are you doing?
It's an Illegal.
What exactly is an Illegal?
It's an inferior creature of unknown origins.
Essentially, it has the ability to eat and store metabugs.
So there are metabugs inside it?
No, there was no such return signal.
All the Illegals I've found so far have fed themselves with metabugs,
but this one consumed textures.
It's not like the ones I'm looking for.
What do you mean?
No return signal...
So there actually are different types of them.
This is an emergency.
The Space is expanding too much.
The Illegal is growing too big.
Such things have never happened before.
Forget about the past;
help me out.
Let's say I do...
But who are you again?
You've forgotten?
I'm Tamako Harakawa!
I really can't remember.
Megabaa has no past.
She forgets things from the past one after the other.
Well, you see...
I'm a woman who lives in the future instead of the past!
Then how about this!
It's the Coil Cyberinvestigation Agency badge!
Yes, I'm Number Two.
Remember, you old hag!
Now I remember.
Tamako Harakawa, huh?
You pissed all over my kotatsu.
A kotatsu is a blanket on a table heated by a stove.
That's not what you should remember!
That fish is too large for me to defeat.
So what I'll do is attack the Space.
In other words, this water is a virus that feeds on Space.
It creates bugs in the normal Space and expands more and more.
However...
If we break the Space, it'll collapse and, in a chain reaction,
the Illegal will shrink and then disappear.
If the Space disappears, that thing can't live any more, right?
Exactly!
But I can't mix metabugs here.
Here you go.
I'll lend you this device.
Make a vaccine with it, you old hag!
Absolutely not!
You have to beg me and bow your head.
Granny!
This isn't the time for that!
It was four years ago, wasn't it?
You owe me, right?
So you finally remembered.
It cut me to the bone.
If I do,
will you forgive me for that time?
Yes.
I beg you.
Very well.
I'll make the software for a vaccine using this.
Fumie, what are you doing?
Not yet!
Don't agree to it yet!
Please, release Daichi!
Wh-What?
Fumie, I knew it! You do...
It's worth this at the least, right?
Well?
All right.
So you'll use it now, right?
Not yet!
I'm not done yet!
Daichi!
Grovel at my feet and say,
"The result of the duel is void".
And then, "I'm sorry".
I-I don't want to!
You fool! Just say it quickly!
Or I'll arrest you again!
Well?
I...
I lost.
The duel is void.
I'm sorry.
I won.
I lost.
All right! Now that we have this, the problem is solved!
Let's go, everyone!
We have to find the densest area of the water-Space.
If not, it won't disappear completely!
These details are different from the map!
We can't figure out where it is just with this!
What did you say?
I take back what I said!
The problem is not solved!
I've found it!
It's to the west!
What is this place?
It's an abandoned municipal pool!
Gotcha!
Looks like it all disappeared.
Finally, the case is solved...
Perhaps that Illegal had something to do with the cybernavis malfunctioning.
I don't think it had anything to do with it.
None of the places it attacked
had anything to do with transportation domains.
Is that so?
The fish...
is dead... isn't it?
Poor little guy.
Yasako!
What's wrong?
Forget about them and get inside!
Fumie, you're so mean today!
Daichi!
Hang in there.
Who's apologizing for real?
Next time I'll find loads of metabugs! You'll see!
Next time
on Dennou Coil:
Daichi's First Hair.
See you next time!