Today the small cat had come to terms with reality: most big cats were woefully ignorant. They refused to believe the world was round, brushing her off with noncommittal "mm-hmms."
The cat's mood dipped slightly.
"Don't you think it's a bit strange to be going out dressed like that? And nobody glows while they eat, do they?" Shiori pointed at Yimi's Astral Dress.
Yimi looked herself over and nodded. "Ugly."
"It's not ugly at all—Yimi herself is very pretty, so anything she wears would look good on her. What I mean is unsuitable. For a date, something a little more casual would be better." A fairly ordinary line. Not entirely dishonest, either.
"A date?" Another word Yimi hadn't encountered.
Hearing that loaded word echoed back at her, Shiori had an inexplicable urge to check whether any police officers were watching the area.
None, of course. Under Ratatoskr's influence, the Spacequake evacuation window had been extended as long as possible—at this point the only people still on the streets of Tengu City were Ratatoskr and AST.
Yimi nodded. "Change clothes."
The light around her slowly faded, finally letting Ratatoskr's remote monitoring team make out her true appearance.
The achievement of becoming human had come with knowledge of how humans changed into different outfits to groom themselves and cover private areas. She didn't like this plain monochrome outfit anyway.
Seeing Yimi watching her intently, Shiori realized the child probably hadn't figured out that Spirits could reshape their Astral Dress into any outfit on the spot—but with her extensive training, she didn't bother explaining. Shopping for clothes was an affection opportunity too.
Having witnessed this girl's capabilities and ruthless methods firsthand, and finding her perfectly communicative once she settled down, Shiori still couldn't make peace with the mummies from earlier, or with the image of misfortune being redirected onto others. You couldn't expect a baby who'd found a trigger and figured out how to pull it to judge right from wrong.
"How about we go shopping first? Clothes are kept in designated areas, and you need something called money to trade for them. Before that—could you give me back my earpiece? That little thing you just pulled out of my ear." Shiori kept her voice gentle.
Yimi held up the invisible earpiece, eyes flickering with something. "Can this—make two ears?"
She was convinced that big cats must shove one of these things into their ear to make their head-ears disappear.
"Two ears?" Shiori couldn't help glancing at the small cat ears perched atop her head.
That might be an important clue to working with her.
She decided to take the gamble: "It can't—but I think Yimi's cat ears are very cute."
"Mm..." Yimi reached up and pressed on her own cat ears, then handed the earpiece back.
"Shiori, don't respond to us—the little girl can hear you even when you lower your voice." The earpiece went back in just in time for Kotori's first instruction.
"Not bad so far. Affection isn't trending up or down yet... Even though we couldn't see her Angel's effect earlier because of the light, let's proceed with the date for now."
Kotori's voice was fairly relaxed. Because the monitoring had only captured the white glow, she had no idea this child could redirect misfortune onto others.
Shiori fell into step beside Yimi with complicated feelings—then noticed the girl's walk had a certain quality to it. Like she didn't acknowledge the existence of anyone else on earth.
It reminded her of a game—a Lalafell with their walk mode switched on, toddling along with that same complete indifference to the rest of the world.
"Shiori, head right—our people have temporarily closed off that stretch of road."
Every other area was deserted from the Spacequake alert, yet the shopping street to the right was buzzing with cheerful foot traffic. Only someone as unguarded as Tohka, Yoshino, or Yimi would fail to notice the setup. Even if Yimi decided she didn't want to shop here, other staff members would scramble to construct the same festive atmosphere in the next block over. She genuinely wondered sometimes how much these people were paid to do this.
Though really—couldn't they pull back a few things for special circumstances?
Inside the fashion plaza, Shiori stood with the corner of her mouth twitching and stared at the white-clad girl.
The Astral Dress was still on, unchanged. What Yimi had in her hands, however, was a black semi-sheer pair of underwear from the adult women's section.
"That's a little advanced for you, don't you think..."
"Mya!"
Yimi didn't hear the rest. She stretched the underwear out as far as it would go in both directions—then released one end. Snap. It flew directly onto Shiori's face.
That was fun.
"You can't damage merchandise like that—don't you see anything you like here?" Shiori removed the fabric from her face with a weary sigh.
"Yes." Yimi stood on tiptoe, pointing toward something just out of reach on the rack above.
A men's leopard-print button-up. Pair it with a chunky gold chain and the look would be complete.
Cat aesthetics: the more pattern, the better.
"Absolutely not!" Shiori moved quickly to stop this squandering of her looks.
"Why not?"
"Shiori, heads up—Yimi's affection just dropped!" Kotori's warning crackled through the earpiece.
Shiori chose to ignore her sister. Even for affection points, she was not putting this adorable little girl in that.
She picked a few age-appropriate outfits according to her own taste and pushed them into Yimi's arms, steering her toward the fitting room to choose.
A long exhale. Listening to the rustling from inside, she finally had a moment to think.
She knew about Origami's hatred for Spirits and the reason behind it—but today's reaction had been nothing like what she'd shown toward Yoshino or the Yamai sisters. Something about it felt ominous...
"Can't get it on." Less than a minute passed before a small, confused voice came from inside.
"Mya!" Followed by an indignant yowl.
"How can it not fit?" Shiori removed her earpiece first—so the cameras wouldn't catch anything they shouldn't—and slipped through the curtain.
She understood at once.
Yimi had dismissed her Astral Dress—but since she'd devoured the novice combat suit and absorbed the human form as her own ability, it hadn't reverted along with the Dress. What stood before Shiori was simply a small, naked, cat-eared girl.
Given that she was a child, the only thing that actually demanded Shiori's attention—floating right in front of her face—was this long, sinuous object.
The tail. Obviously.
Pure white, with a smooth, silky coat.
A beautiful cat tail—except it seemed like it didn't quite belong on the small girl, because Yimi was visibly irritated by it, one hand already batting at it behind her.
"Oh... because of that." With a tail to deal with, ordinary underwear and trousers wouldn't work. Even directing the tail down through a skirt's opening would be a problem—unrestricted swishing would defeat the point. No anti-Newton skirt meant custom tailoring was probably necessary. Simply cutting a hole in fabric would leave gaps showing skin, which would look messier than it was worth. Probably the answer was an elastic band fitted snug at the tail's base to keep things tidy. Given where the tail grew, unless she could consciously hold it down, this little one might be saying goodbye to skirts permanently.
But her Astral Dress was a skirt, wasn't it? She hadn't noticed any tail when the child had her back to her earlier—how had it been hidden?
Oh. The blinding white light had made it impossible to see anything clearly in the first place.
Shiori, who'd once sewn clothes for dolls as a little girl, began thinking through the engineering problem in earnest.
"Let me try something first." She crouched down and retrieved the underwear pooled around Yimi's feet, lifting it.
Even with the tail positioned higher on her back, she clearly couldn't just leave the underwear sitting below it. Some styles—designed to appear daring by narrowing the cut—might show certain shadows in that configuration. That kind existed in reality, naturally, but obviously not in children's sizing. Normal underwear needed to come all the way up to the waist like trousers, which meant the fabric itself would also need tailoring...
Lost in thought, Shiori worked the underwear back down to the ankles while mentally revising the plan.
Yimi looked up, thinking. The knowledge that had come with becoming human told her this was the moment a person should feel embarrassed.
The cat looked down at her nails—barely any longer than they'd been in cat form.