Shiori looked down at the little girl's still-childish face. "Yimi, didn't you ask me just now what I want?"
"Mew?"
The moment the cat heard that the other party was suddenly circling back to demand payment, she immediately looked away and pretended she couldn't understand Japanese.
The naive little cat had never imagined anyone could be so devious—first saying they wanted nothing in return, then coming back for it anyway.
"I'm not talking about payment." Shiori crouched down, lowering herself to just below Yimi's eye level. "What I want is for Spacequakes to disappear from this world entirely. Not just that—I want Yimi to live happily in this world, with no one ever threatening her safety..."
"Nobody threatens me." The little cat flexed her fist.
Because she could redirect misfortune.
"Well, that's true, but it'd still be better if you didn't use that ability..."
"Why?"
Shiori only then noticed how strange that instinctive remark had sounded. She quickly recovered: "Because if nobody is trying to hurt Yimi in the first place, there'd be no need to redirect any misfortune, right?"
Yimi stared at her. "What if I hurt myself?"
What if the cat tripped on the road?
"That... but if Yimi causes it herself, making someone else bear the consequences seems a bit unfair. I really can't make any promises about that one."
Shiori shook her head slightly, then hurriedly added before she could be logic-trapped by a child: "But I will protect you—that I can promise without hesitation."
She crouched low, dropping to a viewpoint below the girl's, like a knight from a fairy tale lifting her tiny right hand. "I will never let you be hurt by anyone else. If Yimi trips on her own, I will be the first one to reach out and catch you. If Yimi is unhappy, I will be the first one to comfort you."
"I am a very soft-hearted person. I don't want others to suffer from misfortune that was never meant for them—and I especially don't want Yimi to suffer."
"?"
Yimi looked down at her, baffled. "What are you trying to do?"
Shiori's gaze drifted slightly. Her mind had already jumped to the ritual she absolutely, unequivocally should not be performing on a child. "Actually, I have an ability that can seal a Spirit's Reiryoku. If your Reiryoku is sealed, no more Spacequakes—and Yimi could stay in this world without a care..."
"Seal?"
The little cat had no word for this in her limited vocabulary, so she turned to the System.
"In response to Host: the word 'seal' commonly refers to the effect of imposing restrictions on a particular power—in short, sealing Host's power so that Host can no longer use it."
"..."
"Shiori, emergency! Yimi's affection is starting to drop!" Kotori sent out an urgent warning.
The little cat needed Reiryoku to replenish her energy—or rather, to use this newly acquired power to defeat the First Spirit.
Sealing her power = losing the ability to complete her mission = losing two methods of completing it = being blocked from going home.
Shiori didn't understand what had gone wrong, but she tried to patch things up. "I'm sorry—did I say something wrong? I don't know anything about Yimi at all..."
"Darling~"
Call it the misfortune reserved for protagonists, or whatever else you like—but every time Shiori worked on winning over a Spirit, something had to go sideways.
Of all the times and places, a Spirit Shiori had won over not long ago appeared out of nowhere right then, rushing over to throw her arms around Shiori's with unmistakable familiarity.
"Miku—what are you doing here...?"
"Ehh~ I wanted to watch darling's heroic figure while winning over a Spirit~" Izayoi Miku pressed Shiori's arm against her chest and wriggled.
Nonsense. She was almost certainly here to get a look at whatever beautiful girl the new Spirit turned out to be.
And so it was. Perhaps from having relied so long on that portable ability to manipulate hearts, even after being sealed, the idol remained the same—acting on impulse the moment something caught her interest.
"Is this child the Spirit this time? How adorable—she's so tiny! Has she been sealed already?" Miku spread her arms wide and moved in to hug Yimi.
Yimi stepped back. Miku stumbled into empty air.
Shiori, sharp-eyed, also noticed that the little girl's expression had taken a sharp turn for the worse.
She's hissing.
"Shiori, emergency! Yimi's affection toward you has plummeted to 'dislike'! And toward Miku—it's somewhere around 'how she looks at insects'!"
"?"
Was Yimi the jealous type? No—if that were it, her affection toward Shiori herself wouldn't have tanked this much. Unless—
Shiori looked in bafflement at Miku, who looked equally baffled beside her, and found herself recalling what Miku had done before being sealed: hypnotizing and manipulating her fans, hand-picking pretty girls to bring back home alone.
What did you do to this child?!
"『Annihilation Angel!』"
The power available was minimal, but Astral Dress No. 1 automatically replaced the clothes on Yimi's small frame. Wings of an angel—formed from floating cannons—unfurled one by one, their muzzles locking onto a thoroughly confused Izayoi Miku.
"First Spirit!"
"Wha—??" Miku had absolutely no idea what was happening. "Why is a kid I've never met suddenly hating me?!"
Shiori was even more at a loss.
So the "First Spirit" this child has been going on about is you?!
"Stop—Yimi!" Shiori quickly spread her arms in front of Miku. "There's definitely a misunderstanding here. There's no way Miku is the First Spirit! She became a Spirit only recently. You can look up her past online—everything is there, see?"
She held up her phone—now of all times, grateful it hadn't frozen.
Yoimachi Tsukino. That was the stage name Miku had used before becoming a Spirit. She had been falsely slandered after refusing to comply with an unspoken demand; her fans had done a complete one-eighty. That sudden betrayal was precisely what had twisted her into someone who despised men and adored women.
"Go away."
The cat wasn't looking. The cat simply, genuinely disliked this woman.
Light gathered at the muzzles of the floating cannons—but at the energy Yimi had recovered to, she only had enough for a single shot, far less efficient than materializing a Stand using her mental power.
"How could I just go away? Yimi—I don't know anything about you, and I've made too many promises. But I want to understand you. At least tell me why you're doing this."
"..."
The floating cannons retracted. After thinking it over for a moment, the little cat abandoned this wasteful course of action.
She dismissed her Astral Dress and took a few steps back, staring at Shiori for a long moment.
The cat was a little afraid. This woman had the power to keep her from going home. No wonder she smelled so good—bite her and the cat would probably be poisoned. She had once seen the neighbors use a sweet-smelling little cake to kill a mouse.
Yimi bowed her head. From her inventory she produced a wiggle car capable of lethal injury, and, under Shiori's anxious gaze, pushed it over to her.
"This. Payment."
Compensation for all the food. Yimi loved the wiggle car—but hated the noise it made—so in her mind, it felt fair.
"Yimi, I said I didn't need—"
Yimi flicked her tail. She shifted back into cat form; her tailored clothes collapsed softly over her small shape. She wriggled out through the collar, turned to bare her teeth one last time at Miku, and leaped onto the wall before darting away.
She also left the clothes for Shiori.
"...Why did she suddenly hate me?"
Shiori crouched to gather the garments the cat had apparently returned along with herself. She folded them carefully. They still held the faint warmth the little girl had left behind.
"Oh—that's it!" Miku clapped her palm, finally remembering the cat-type Spirit she had accidentally made an enemy of before.
"So why does she hate you so much..." Shiori looked at her helplessly.
Miku drooped her head in regret. "Because I thought she was a boy and called her names... really awful things."
"You insulted a child..." Shiori rubbed her temples. Now the pieces fit—so Yimi was telling the truth when she said the First Spirit had insulted her.
"I know I was wrong!"
"Come back now, Shiori—don't stand there brooding over one setback. Helping Spirits open their hearts is also part of our job."
"I know..." Shiori lifted the brand-new wiggle car in her hands—the one with documented kills to its name.
She'd return it to the child next time they met.
AST Training Room.
"This is not the first time you've acted without authorization. Do you remember what you wrote in your conduct pledge?"
"I'm sorry."
She was thoroughly reprimanded.
An unauthorized sortie had caused harm to an innocent person hundreds of kilometers away. Though it had been the Spirit's doing, on the surface it looked exactly as though they had killed a civilian.
The blame should have been Origami's alone to bear—but the captain had claimed it as a lapse of command and taken all the pressure from above onto herself.
"You're suspended until further notice. Whatever the case, cool down for a few days!"
...
Now, on the way home.
The pure white Spirit—
An unopened canned energy drink crumpled in the girl's grip before she could open it, crushed by her bare hands. The sweet, sticky liquid ran across pale, well-shaped thighs below her short skirt and trickled into streams.
She couldn't win.
"Mew!"
A cat's wail—that particular soul-tearing pitch unique to the species—drifted out from an alleyway. Under normal circumstances, there were no stray cats on this stretch of road home.
Origami followed the sound. Curled into a perfect sphere, a cat with strikingly unusual markings sat motionless, staring at an empty cardboard box.
The cat had a theory that cardboard boxes regularly produced stray kittens. She was waiting here so she could rescue any that appeared.
Faintly familiar—but you could see dozens of different cats outside on any given day. There was no reason to pay particular attention.
Perhaps it was territorial instinct: a stray on a nearby trash can had begun making threatening sounds at the little ball of fur. The compact bundle didn't so much as twitch in response.
At last, the stray made its move.
The result was not even close. It had barely gotten within range before the fur ball swatted it to the ground with a single paw, leaving it flat and motionless.
Then Yimi sniffed the air. She caught the sweet scent of the drink on the girl's clothes.
"Mew~" Yimi immediately released the stray she had pinned, trotted over to Origami's feet, and let out a small, wheedling cry.
I was hurt so badly.
It bullied me because I don't have my little car.
I need something good to eat.
"Mew?" ...Why is it you, you big idiot?
No, wait—"big idiot" is already taken. You're the small idiot.
The cat had recognized this irritating white-haired girl as the person who had attacked her.
Origami: "..."
She crouched down and gave the cat a gentle pat on the head.
Then she stood up and left. Just like that. Leaving nothing behind.
Still a freeloader. A pat on the head, no food, the... the...
"Freeloader," the System supplied the word the cat couldn't find.