Kobato : The Novel (Chapter One)

“Kobato.”
“Yes, Ioryogi-san!”
“This is where your test begins. You understand what you have to do to get your wish granted, right? You know that this is a very, very, very important test? You get that?”
“Yes! I understand!!”
“…Well then, if you’re sure…”1

Exam 1 : The First Test2

“Then why the hell have you spent all morning jammed inside of this dim thing?!” the little blue dog yelled. “You look like you’re doing a simulation of sushi, for crying out loud!”
“Because!” Kobato replied. Her voice echoed throughout the park’s kiddy tunnel as she waved her feet in the air outside. “It’s like we’ve got our own hide out in here! We can have secret conversations and stuff! It’s fun!”
Ioryogi was at least a little angry, and exasperated, at Kobato’s statement. She sounded so sincere.
“Fun?!” Ioryogi asked, blasting an inferno from his mouth. “I’ll show you fun!!”
Kobato leapt to her feet as she cried, “Kyaaaaa!” all the way. She somehow made it out alive.
“Hanato Kobato!” Ioryogi barked.
“Yes!” Kobato said as she quickly turned to him, her lengthy strands of auburn hair flipping in the wind.
“What is your wish?!”
“There’s a place I want to go to!”
“And what do you need to get there?!”
“I have to fill a bottle up with wounded hearts that I’m going to collect!”
“But before that?!”
“I have to try my hardest to get the bottle!”
“And what exactly do you have to do to earn that bottle?!”
“I have to pass a test to see if I can live here or not!”
“That’s right! And your test has already started! Do you understand or not?! RAHHH!!”
“I understand, I understand!” Kobato said, accidentally also letting out a little shriek of fear. This might have been a strange sight, considering that you would see a grown woman cowering in front of a little luminescent-blue stuffed dog.
“Well,” Ioryogi continued, “what’s being tested is just how much common sense you can muster up, here! You have to prove that you can fit in!”
“Right!”
“Get going, then! Show me what you’ve got, Kobato! It’s a park! It’s early morning! Show me you can act like a normal human being!”
“Okay!” Kobato said, dashing off. She reached the nearest trashcan and, with a look that said “I do this every day,” pulled out a crumpled newspaper. She walked over to the proximate bench and lied down on it, pulling the newspaper over her body, then pretended to fall asleep. Ioryogi stared in disbelieve by the little amount of common sense her brain held.
“How was that, Ioryogi-san?!” Kobato, eyes popping open, asked animatedly.
“What the hell was that supposed to be?!” Ioryogi asked, giving Kobato another good scorching. “A tired businessman on his lunch break?!”
Kobato let out her customary screech of, “Kyaaaa!”3

As Kobato ambled down the road, Ioryogi, perched in Kobato’s bag, said, “Couldn’t even manage to act natural in a park, huh?”
“I’m sorry…” Kobato told him, disappointed that she had not met expectations as well as she thought she might.
“Oh, no!”
Kobato turned and glanced back at the passerby who had said this. They continued on, “I’ll never make the bus at this rate!”
“Excuse me,” Kobato said, tapping the man’s shoulder to get his attention. “Do you need help with something?”
Hey! You live in the apartment building, don’t you?!” the man asked, his words rushing into each other. “Sorry to ask you this, but do you think you could throw this out for me? Just in the usual spot is fine! Thanks!”
He dumped the bulky trash bag into Kobato’s hands, leaving her to say, “Wh-What?!”
Kobato watched as he started running back down the street, hearing grumbles of “Ahhh!” all the way. She then glanced down at the bag.
“He left me with this?” she asked.
“This is perfect,” Ioryogi said, a sparkle in his eye. “It’ll be your next test!” He then yelled to Kobato in his mind, “What’re you gonna do with that garbage? Well? Show me what you got!”
“R-Right!” Kobato said.4

He asked me to throw this out in the “usual spot,” Kobato wondered as she trotted along the road. The usual spot. Where’s a usual spot to throw out garbage?!
Glancing back and forth both ways, up and down and all around, she finally spotted the sign reading, “Garbage Collection Station.”
“There it is!” Kobato cried. Stepping up to it, she said, “I can this here, then…”
The noticed in the station caught her eye. She gasped.
The sign read, “Please be conscientious. Toss away as little waste as possible.”
She heard a flapping above her as small, beating shadows flew above. She glanced back at the crows overhead.
“There sure are a lot of crows,” Kobato said, the crows cawing at her.
“They’re after the garbage, duh,” Ioryogi said with a sigh, leaning on the exterior of Kobato’s bag. “Better hurry up before they start pecking at it.
“They want the garbage?” Kobato asked, staring up at the birds. “ That’s what the crows are here for?”
She pondered on it. The crows flapping in the sky, begging for food enough to eat the trash. Then…
She remembered earlier. The sign.
With the widest grin on her face, Kobato hastily tugged the bag open and held it up above her.
“Here you go, crows!” she exclaimed, the crows all giving her weird stares. “It’s all yours!”
“What’re you doing?!” Ioryogi erupted, the crows diving down greedily. “Don’t open that up here!!!5

The pair wobbled drunkenly on the tunnel, having to take a breather after the catastrophe Kobato had caused. Ioryogi was the first to speak up.
“What the hell were you thinking, calling the crows over like that!”
“T-The crows wanted the garbage, right? Well there was a sign that said to throw out less garbage,” Kobato explained. “So I figured that if I gave some to the crows, I’d have less garbage to throw out.”
“YOU MORON!!!” Ioryogi bellowed, shooting Kobato with another fiery roar.
“Kyaaaa!” cried the now more scathed Kobato.
“You don’t deserve to be called ‘Kobato’ anymore!” Ioryogi told her. “‘Dobato’ is more like it!” (*)
“That’s not very nice!” Kobato said, coughing up any excess ash that her lungs had gathered. Then, remembering why she had ended up like this, Kobato said, “Oh, oh! What about the test? How did I do?!”
Ioryogi, now just a bit pissed, twirled his brush onto Kobato’s face, marking a big, fat X.
“Zero points for Dobato!”
“I’ll get it next time!” Kobato vowed, clenching her fists. “I’m going to try really hard!!”