"Shiori, what happened?" After Shiori put her earpiece back in, she could hear Kotori's concerned question.
"..."
You're the one who said not to answer me.
Itsuka Shiori rubbed her face wearily—more precisely, the four faint scratch marks across it.
Surprisingly, the child had been rather shy about it. She'd also calibrated her strength—just marks, nothing worse. Nothing like the five delinquents in the security footage, drained to dried husks.
Looking at the girl's face now, there was no embarrassed flush, no trace of shyness. There was only the unsettling quality of someone who'd been told by an adult to "scratch anyone who looks at you" and had taken it completely at face value. Strange.
Yimi tilted her face back to meet the gaze of Shiori, who stood considerably taller.
She felt like she ought to say something insulting. But the privacy rules that had come with learning to be human also told her that one girl seeing another girl wasn't quite as serious.
Yimi consulted System: "Find me something to say. Insult. Keep it mild."
"Beginning to process your unreasonable request—"
A sparse scatter of words appeared. Most of them Yimi couldn't read, so she picked one with the least complicated structure and pointed at Shiori's face:
"Small fry."
"?"
"Small fry. Small fry."
"Uh..."
"What's your name?"
"Didn't I just tell you—I'm Shiori..."
"Small-fry Shiori."
"..."
"Congratulations, Host! Achievement unlocked: [Little Brat]. Reward: Portal energy +5%."
"Mya?"
Shiori didn't feel particularly insulted—but somehow developed a strong urge to discipline this small creature regardless. Since Kotori hadn't said anything, the affection meter hadn't crashed, right?
She looked the girl over. "Do you like the outfit, Yimi?"
Here one had to credit Ratatoskr's staff—they'd produced custom-tailored garments to spec in under two minutes.
The tail had made skirts impractical, robbing them of the eye-catching elegance that accompanied other Spirits' reveals. A white blouse printed with cartoon cats, paired with pale-colored shorts—this was Shiori's vision of appropriate clothing for a girl this age, though it had earned a unanimous thumbs-down from Ratatoskr's crew.
Even so, the fashion-challenged Shiori couldn't figure out in practice how to put a cat-girl in a cute little skirt—the cat-girl doll she'd sewn clothes for as a child hadn't had a tail that actually moved.
The one bright spot was the pair of over-the-knee socks encasing both legs—pink and white in a loud alternating pattern that perfectly matched cat aesthetics. The only irritation was having toe-pads covered by shoes and socks, slightly uncomfortable.
Without those socks, a young cat in just a blouse and shorts—with hair that only reached her neck—might have been easily mistaken for a pretty boy with long hair.
Thinking of that, Shiori produced a hair clip and gave Yimi's hair a small finishing touch.
"I like it."
Before Shiori could settle in to wait for Ratatoskr's next options, Yimi had already stated her own agenda:
"Pudding."
Never forgot why she'd come.
"Right this way, then."
Shiori moved to take her hand—but the small girl was already walking beside her with a Lalafell-like toddling gait, so she pulled her hand back awkwardly.
After they'd left the area, Reine sent two staff members over to fill in the massive crater the garden was missing—best to do it before some pedestrian stumbled in.
The sweet shop was also staffed by Ratatoskr employees. Not every Spirit mission required clearing out civilians, but they'd judged Yimi too dangerous at the start.
"Ready to take your order."
The staff member at the counter was another familiar face—Murasame Reine, Ratatoskr's analyst, and also their homeroom teacher and physics instructor. Outwardly a silver-haired beauty who looked under twenty-five; outwardly also giving the impression of someone who'd been running on fumes.
"Whoa!"
Despite appearing entirely unremarkable aside from her identity, Reine suddenly commanded Yimi's complete attention. Her eyes lit up. She circled Reine once, looked her over from left and right, then leaned in for a sniff.
Reine turned her head away, subtly uncomfortable.
"How is this possible—Yimi's affection for Reine just instantly surpassed Shiori's?!" Kotori stared, lollipop dropping right out of her mouth.
Since Shiori was the protagonist, they did technically track the minor characters they'd placed nearby—in case any of them accidentally irritated the Spirit. For just a moment, the reading had genuinely surpassed Shiori's—even peaked at full—before quickly dropping back. Even so, it remained neck and neck with Shiori's score. Because she was a child, was this the type she gravitated toward...?
The question didn't linger long. Yimi pointed at Reine and bestowed a new title:
"Looks like Grandma."
And she smelled nice too.
"?" Reine paused. "How so?"
Yimi's finger migrated to the dark circles under her eyes. "About-to-drop-dead look."
She'd looked at her own reflection in cat form before—she had dark circles too. Clear evidence of a blood relation between the cat and Grandma.
"..."
Out of the mouths of babes.
On the other hand, this was further proof that this small Spirit leaned more human than feline.
Reine slid the menu across without expression. Looking closely, one could see that coffee and chocolate had already been blacked out from the options—someone had clearly considered that Yimi might react to them the same way a real cat would.
Since the target wasn't moving, Shiori—who had experience handling Spirit social cluelessness—explained: "This is the menu. You can choose what you'd like to eat, and I'll pay for it."
Yimi leaned her face close to Shiori's, her childlike breath nearly brushing the girl's cheek. "What do I give you?"
The cat had already paid with the truth about the world—but the ignorant big cats had brushed her off.
"Think of this as me treating you—you don't have to give anything..." Shiori waved her hands quickly, guilt pricking at her regardless. Her actual goal here was to kiss this child—who fully qualified as a young child—in order to seal her powers.
"Just order first."
Yimi sat back and pointed at the menu. "Can I only get one?"
"If you won't waste it, ordering several is fine." Shiori glanced beneath the table—the small girl's feet in their little shoes were dangling, not quite reaching the floor. How much could this size actually eat...?
"Everything!"
"...Can you even finish all of that?" Is she actually the same species as Tohka?!
Fortunately, Ratatoskr had learned from handling Tohka and didn't look the least bit frazzled.
What did catch them off guard was the girl making zero ceremony of it when the pudding arrived—she just reached in with her bare hand.
"Hold on—at least acknowledge the spoon, would you?" Shiori produced a paper napkin, wiped her mouth clean, and—using the motion as natural cover—slid into the seat beside her and took hold of the small hand, demonstrating a proper grip.
"See? Use this and your hands won't get sticky. Right?"
"Troublesome."
She'd evolved such wonderfully convenient hands, and now eating required carrying tools everywhere.
"Shiori's got real boyfriend energy as always." Kotori offered praise through the earpiece. "But I have to wonder—is it the child factor? Even with this much closeness, neither affection nor bashfulness is moving..."
A subordinate noted: "A normal little girl wouldn't feel bashful at a big sister being affectionate with her."
It's big-sister energy—and you were exactly like this with me growing up, Shiori thought to herself.
"She did ask about the First Spirit earlier, though—that might be a breakthrough about her past." Another subordinate chimed in.
"True, it's a topic that might trip a wire. But she brought it up herself... Whatever the case, Shiori, take one more risk for us." Progress had stalled—without pushing, it might stay stuck right here.
"Understood." Shiori murmured a reflexive response under her breath.
Yimi looked up at her quizzically.
"Ah... Yimi mentioned the First Spirit earlier—would you be comfortable telling me a little about that?" Shiori propped both cheeks on her hands, doing her best impression of a sympathetic older sister.
"Big dumbass!" The cat bristled immediately.
"A big what?" Shiori's hands slipped, and her chin knocked the tabletop.
She must have heard wrong. What word had just come out of that pretty little mouth?
Shiori noticed that Reine, stationed in the aisle, had looked over. Even unflappable Miss Reine must be inwardly stunned that a child this young could produce such filthy language.
"Purple hair." Yimi touched her own hair, trying to describe [the purple-haired woman's] appearance more specifically.
Shiori noticed Reine's gaze had sharpened—not her usual half-lidded observation, but something more deliberate. Diligent as always, the analyst cataloguing every detail. Professional to the last.
Come to think of it—Reine's hair was silver, but in dim lighting it did take on a faintly purple cast, didn't it. Ha.
"Why is Yimi so hostile toward her?"
"She insulted me."
"..."
Suddenly she didn't want to know the details. So the First Spirit was actually this insufferable?
"After we eat, would you like to walk around a bit? There's a festival down that street—you can scoop little goldfish."
"Goldfish!"
Children's preferences. At least those were manageable.