Compared to other Spirits, the activities appropriate for Yimi skewed considerably younger—children this age didn't get much out of shopping unless it involved toys or play. Accordingly, Ratatoskr had erected an entire street of festival stalls on the spot, swapping every booth out for the kind a little girl—based on the Commander's personal taste—would likely enjoy.
On the whole, the date was going fairly smoothly.
"You're a good person."
Yimi carried a bag with a goldfish inside, walking with that peculiar gait that looked completely natural on a small child and nowhere else.
She lifted the little goldfish up to eye level, opened her mouth to show a small fang, and her eyes gleamed with something distinct from childlike wonder.
The goldfish: danger.
The small cat plucked a goldfish out and—right in front of Shiori—chewed it up and ate it.
Shiori: "..."
"Affection is already very high—but we're still one trigger short. Don't tell me we actually have to go pick a fight with the First Spirit on her behalf?" Kotori rubbed her pale neck in frustration.
"That seems inadvisable," said Reine, who had teleported back to the ship at some point. "Antagonizing another Spirit for the sake of the one we're currently routing is counterproductive. And making a child feel romantic bashfulness wasn't going to be simple to begin with."
"I was just thinking out loud. At the end of the day, even if this were just practice for Shiori's flirting, we wouldn't be using a subject this age as a reference."
"How are both of you just completely glossing over the fact that she just ate a live goldfish..." Shiori muttered, barely audible.
Pudding, the amusement park, goldfish scooping—aside from movies, which were a poor choice for affection, they'd basically run through everything. Their progress had stalled.
Yimi turned around and practiced walking backwards, facing Shiori. "What do you want? I don't have money."
"You don't need to pay me anything..." Shiori looked down helplessly at those small fuzzy ears, doing her best to resist the urge to reach out and touch them. Until she'd properly won Yimi over, any gesture that might be read as crossing a line had to be avoided.
Eats a lot, pure-hearted, no social common sense—Yimi and Tohka had so much in common.
Shiori thought back to the day she'd sealed Tohka's powers. For someone like this—maybe the direct approach was better?
Lost in thought, she suddenly noticed those ears twitch—and the small figure bolted toward a nearby alley.
"Yimi?"
She followed quickly and found the girl crouched before a cardboard box, staring intently at the kittens inside. They looked barely a month old.
Three tabbies with similar coats—one of them lying motionless in the corner. The box had a note in Japanese that read "Please adopt me," placed somewhere most people would miss—probably left in haste by someone evacuating from a Spacequake alert who'd wanted to keep the kittens from being stepped on.
A wave of déjà vu washed over Yimi. She was reminded of a memory she'd nearly buried—hadn't she been picked up by Mom the same way?
The cat was shocked. She'd barely had any memories from back then—she'd always assumed she was born to her mom.
So why did both the cat and Grandma have dark circles??
"Were they abandoned?" Shiori crouched beside Yimi and reached out to touch the one that lay still.
Already stiff. It had gone to be with the others, by the look of it.
Yimi noticed too. Her ears drooped.
Shiori sighed. "Things like this happen often in cities. Workers who get laid off or transferred somewhere new are forced to abandon their pets. Though honestly—most cases are probably because of the Spacequakes."
"Spacequakes?" The small cat looked up.
Shiori's lips moved. She told her the truth: "The destruction that happens when a Spirit appears. The AST—the people who attacked Yimi earlier—they showed up because of that. Yimi can't fully control Spacequakes, either, of course."
She couldn't hold back any longer. She gently ruffled the small girl's head.
Kotori had said Yimi was a new Spirit without even a codename assigned—she might not have the slightest understanding of what her own arrival was doing to the world around her.
It wasn't ideal for her to be the one saying any of this, as the one trying to win her over. But if Yimi never understood that her appearances had consequences and chain reactions, she'd probably never be willing to be sealed.
Strictly speaking, given the Spacequake Yimi's arrival had caused earlier—if there had actually been casualties, that would've been just rotten luck.
"When a Spacequake hits, everyone has to evacuate—but everyone here has different things going on, different places to be. Staying with a cat twenty-four hours a day isn't really practical in a society like this. And if a Spacequake happened at the wrong moment—even if a cat were sensitive enough to feel it coming—one locked inside a house still couldn't get out. The owner might not make it back home in time either. Maybe with how frequently Tengu City has been getting hit lately, it's just been putting too much pressure on people..."
Shiori thought of Miku's past attempt to use a Spacequake alert to empty the entire city just so she could practice singing in peace.
Yimi put it together. Because she'd put on her Astral Dress and triggered a Spacequake, these small cats had ended up homeless—just like her.
The cat was a bad cat. She couldn't do that anymore.
"For now, let's take the kittens to an animal clinic for a checkup, and then bring some cat food and drop them off at a shelter... As for this one—we'll bury her in the hills."
"Bury?" Yimi held the dead kitten in her palms and wouldn't let go.
"Yes. When someone passes away, we bury them so they can rest in peace." Shiori gathered the box with the remaining kittens.
It was unexpected—but it turned out Ratatoskr did have two staff members with actual veterinary licenses who'd transferred in. Enough to do a basic examination with what was on hand.
Luck was on their side, it seemed—the two surviving kittens checked out fine. After vaccinations and deworming, they'd be ready for the shelter.
Throughout the whole process, Yimi stood outside the clinic far from the entrance, watching through the glass—and the moment she saw the vet produce a syringe, she clapped both hands firmly over her eyes.
She's afraid of needles. More common sense than Tohka, in some respects.
At last, Shiori prepared a cat carrier and cat food, along with some money, and left it all at the shelter's entrance. "We'll leave them here—the staff will find adoptive families when they're back. No need to worry."
"Mm." Yimi patted the carrier lightly, consoling the kittens inside: "Once you grow up and get a System, and become big cats—things will be better."
Once again—a sentence Shiori couldn't quite follow.
Yimi dug into her plastic bag and pulled out the goldfish, setting it in front of the kittens as a parting gift.
"Shiori—absolutely brilliant!" Kotori's praise rang through the earpiece. "Bashfulness is nowhere near where we need it, but the affection level is already high enough. That's my Onee-chan—don't miss this window."
Wait. The affection was already high enough?
Was she really supposed to kiss a child this small? This didn't feel right at all...