Chapter 2

Rainy Girl

“Heeey, Itsuka! …Dude, what’s wrong with you?” Tonomachi greeted Shido when he dragged himself into the classroom in the morning.

Tonomachi might have been his best friend, but a total stranger would have likely reacted the same way, given his current state. Not only were his face and hands patched up in bandages, but he was staggering on heavy feet as if on the verge of collapse.

“…Oh, you know,” Shido replied vaguely, a faint smile on his lips, and then let out a sigh.

“Oh, right!” Tonomachi smiled suddenly. “I gave it a listen, that radio program you sent me. What was that? It was totally hilarious.”

“Ngh!” Shido’s face stiffened. “Y-you listened to it already…?”

“Yup. The bit at the start anyway. I guess it’s supposed to be a joke? I mean, if they were serious, it’s pretty cringey!”

“Ah…ha-ha-ha… R-right.” He produced a dry laugh and deliberately averted his eyes. He would have very much preferred that Tonomachi forget all about that radio program. He changed the subject. “S-so anyway, what’re you looking at?”

His friend was staring very intently at the pinup page at the end of some manga magazine.

“Oh, this? I wanted to ask you something.”

“Wh-what?” Shido asked.

“So—nurse, shrine maiden, or maid,” Tonomachi said, unusually solemn. “Which one do you like?”

“…Excuse me?” He gaped at the unexpected question.

“They’re doing a reader poll to decide on the next pinup costume,” Tonomachi explained. “But I can’t decide, you know?”

“…Ohhh, is that it?” He sighed.

Tonomachi thrust the magazine at him. “So? Which one?!”

“Uh, umm…,” he stammered, overwhelmed by his friend’s strange intensity. “Maybe…maid?”

Tonomachi’s eyebrows jumped up in surprise.

“Wh-what?” Shido asked.

“I can’t believe you’re into maids! It was nice being your friend! We’re through!”

“…” Shido scratched his cheek, choosing to simply turn away and walk over to his own desk.

“Oh! Hey!” Tonomachi called. “Where’re you going?!”

“…I thought our friendship was over.”

“Man, you’re no fun. Maid lovers and nurse fans gotta come together. It might open up a whole new world!” Apparently, Tonomachi preferred nurses.

Shido ignored his friend and set his bag on his own chair.

The girl already seated at the desk next to his, reading a thick technical book—Origami Tobiichi—glanced at him silently. “…”

“H-hey… Morning, Tobiichi.”

“Morning,” she replied, her voice monotone, and tilted her head slightly to one side. “Maids?”

“…O-oh.” He hurriedly waved his hands. “Forget it; it’s nothing.”

“Oh?” She dropped her eyes back down to the page.

“Morning!” Tonomachi waved at her, but Origami’s face remained stony. He shrugged exaggeratedly and pushed up against Shido. “I know I say this every time, but why does she only say hi to you? Hngh! Argh!”

“H-how should I know? Quit it.” He brushed his friend away and took his seat.

The classroom door clattered open. Tohka stepped in.

Given that she also lived in the Itsuka house, they took the same route to school. People would get all kinds of ideas, however, if they arrived at school together, so they made a point of leaving the house at different times. The things she said—and implied—when she first transferred to his school still lingered in the minds of their classmates, and he would absolutely lose it if fresh fuel was added to that fire in the span of fewer than seventy-five days, before the rumors were forgotten.

“…” She sat down at the desk on the other side of his and opened her mouth without meeting his eyes. “…Um, so. Sorry about this morning… Were you hurt?”

“N-nah.” He gave her a pained smile and picked at his face. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Mm…” She nodded slightly.

“…Ah.” He finally noticed that several of their classmates were listening in and looking at them with curiosity.

Tohka hadn’t noticed yet. “B-but, I mean, it was your fault. I was just surprised… It was so sudden.”

He could hear everyone around them gasping.

“T-Tohka…!” he yelped. “Could we talk about this later…?”

“Mm? Why?” She raised her eyebrows at him before finally noticing the eyes on them. “…!” She gasped as if remembering his careful instructions the day before to keep their living situation a secret.

A bead of sweat ran down her cheek. “I-it’s not like that. Me and Shido aren’t living together or anything!”

“…!” The students around them jumped in their seats.

“I-idiot…,” he muttered to himself and deliberately raised his voice. “O-oh! You mean when you bumped into me on the way to school this morning! A-are you okay, Tohka?!”

“Mm…? Y-yeah!” Picking up on his signal, Tohka managed to make their stories match up, albeit awkwardly.

It sounded forced, but their classmates accepted this slipshod story, which seemed more likely than two of their classmates living together.

Everyone, except for the girl to his left, who was glaring at them with eyes so cold, he almost got frostbite.

“…”

Shido let out a deep sigh, certain that the cracks in their cover story would reveal themselves soon enough.

Surprisingly soon, as it turned out.

The bell rang to signal the end of fourth period and the start of lunch.

“Shido! Time for our midday meal!”

“…”

Desks from both sides docked with his, crashing together. Naturally, Tohka was on the right and Origami on the left.

“…Mm, who invited you?” Tohka sniffed.

“I could ask the same thing,” Origami replied without missing a beat.

“H-hey,” he said, trying to placate the two girls. “Calm down. We can just all eat together, okay…?”

Tohka and Origami sat down quietly and reluctantly. Then they each pulled their lunch out of their bags. When Shido followed suit and set his on his desk, he opened it as the girls opened theirs.

Origami’s eyes widened the slightest bit, and he cursed his own carelessness.

He had made his lunch himself that morning. And of course, he always took care of Kotori’s at the same time. (Well, whenever Kotori wasn’t missing for months.) When there was a sudden need for one more lunch, that had been his job.

“…” Origami’s cold gaze shifted back and forth between the contents of Shido’s and Tohka’s lunches. The exact same items were on offer in both.

“Mm? Wh-what?” Tohka looked at Origami suspiciously as the other girl peered at her, perhaps not realizing the gravity of the situation. “There’s nothing for you in here.”

“What is this about?” Origami demanded.

“O-oh, this…?” Shido looked anywhere but at her. He was starting to perspire. “A-actually, it was—I bought this at a lunch place this morning. And Tohka just happened to—”

“Liar.” Origami cut him off and lifted the lid of his lunch box from where it lay upside down on his desk. “This is the lunch box you’ve been using ever since you bought it one hundred fifty-four days ago for fifteen hundred eighty yen at the discount shop by the station. It’s not from a lunch place.”

“H-how do you—?” he started, baffled.

“That’s not the issue here.”

He thought it very much was the issue, but Origami’s tone brooked no argument, and he was overwhelmed, at a loss for words.

“Hmph! What are you two talking about?! Don’t go leaving me out!” Tohka said from the side, puffing up her cheeks indignantly.

Vwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnmmmmm.

A shrill alarm blared through the neighborhood. Instantly, all lunchtime chatter stopped.

The spacequake alarm. A sign of the impending disaster known as a spacequake, the most devastating of catastrophes that had posed a serious threat to humanity for the last thirty years.

“…” Origami didn’t say a word, although she seemed to hesitate for a moment even as she immediately stood up and raced out of the classroom.

“…” Shido could only follow her with his eyes, feeling a complex range of emotion. He felt a bit gross about feeling grateful for a spacequake, but that alarm had saved him by ringing at just the right moment.

While Origami Tobiichi was a student at his school, she was also a capable member of the Self-Defense Forces Anti-Spirit Team. Which meant that she was currently headed for the battlefield. To kill a Spirit like Tohka.

“…” He gritted his teeth together. He knew he couldn’t stop Origami, but…

“…It’s the alarm, kids,” came a spaced-out voice from the doorway. In her white lab coat and glasses, the physics teacher—Reine—pointed toward the hallway. “Hurry and evacuate to the underground shelter.”

Fear on their faces, the students filed into the hallway.

“Mm? Shido, where is everyone going?” Tohka tilted her head as she watched their classmates.

“O-oh,” he said. “The shelter. It’s in the basement.”

“What’s a shelter?”

“I’ll explain later. We should get going, too, Tohka.”

“M-mm.” With a lingering look of regret at the lunch she hadn’t touched, Tohka stood up and followed Shido out into the hallway.

“…Shin. You’re going this way.” Reine grabbed him by the nape of his neck.

“R-Reine?” he said. “Which way?”

“…To Fraxinus, obviously,” she told him, lowering her voice so the other students couldn’t hear her. “I know this is hot on the heels of yesterday, so you might not have come to any conclusions about the future yet, but—No, that’s exactly why I want you to see this. You need to witness the Spirit and the situation she’s in.”

His throat was dry, and he swallowed hard before clenching his hands into small fists. “…I understand. I’ll come with you.”

Reine nodded, her eyes sleepily half-open. She glanced over at the line of students marching toward the shelter before turning her face toward the stairs. “…Let’s hurry. Not much time before the spacequake.”

“R-right. So—Oh! Reine, shouldn’t we bring Tohka?” he asked, glancing over at Tohka. The girl in question was looking in surprise at their classmates forming neat lines in the hallway as they evacuated.

“…Oh, her. Hmm, let’s have her evacuate to the shelter with everyone else.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“…Mm-hmm. With her power sealed away, she’s not much different from any other human being. And I’d rather she didn’t watch the battle between the Spirit and the AST and end up remembering everything that happened to her. I told you, didn’t I? Ratatoskr wants to lower her stress as much as possible.”

“No, but—,” Shido started but was interrupted by a shrill voice farther down the hallway.

“C-c’mon! Itsuka! Yatogami! And even Ms. Murasame! P-please don’t just stand there! If you don’t hurry and evacuate, you’ll be in danger!” Tamae Okamine—Shido’s homeroom teacher, known to her students as Tama—called out in a panic, her small shoulders squared.

“…Mm, it’ll be a hassle if she gets us. Let’s go.” Reine gave him a signal with her eyes and turned her feet toward the stairs.

“Ah! Hey—” He was a little concerned, but he didn’t have much of a choice. He nodded and scratched his head as he took Tohka’s hand and placed it in Tama’s. “Please take care of Tohka!”

“Fwah? Huh? Oh, s-sure. Of course!” Tama opened her eyes wide, caught off guard at being suddenly entrusted with the girl. Then she gave a firm nod. “I’m the teacher, after all!”

“Shido…?” Tohka frowned, seeming a little worried.

“Listen, Tohka. You have to evacuate with her.”

“But what about you? What are you doing?”

“Oh… I have something really important to do. You go on ahead. Okay?”

“Ah! Sh-Shido!” Tohka shouted.

“Itsuka?! Ms. Murasame?! Where on earth are you going?!” Tama cried out as Shido chased after Reine toward the exit.

“Aah, you’re both here. The Spirit’s about to show up. Reine, get ready,” Kotori greeted them from her captain’s chair as soon as Shido and Reine arrived on the bridge of Fraxinus.

“…Right.” Reine flipped up the bottom of her lab coat and sat down in front of a console on the lower deck of the bridge.

“Now, then.” Kotori turned curious eyes on the silent Shido. “Sorry I couldn’t really give you much time. Have you made up your mind, Shido?”

“…”

Before he could respond, a shrill siren began to wail on the bridge.

“Wh-what’s that?” His eyes widened.

“Powerful Spirit waves confirmed! She’s coming!” a male crew member shouted from the lower deck.

Kotori snapped her fingers. “Okay! Switch the main monitor to video of the anticipated appearance site.”

A bird’s-eye view of the town was displayed. The main street, lined with shops. Naturally, there wasn’t a person in sight; it looked like a ghost town. The center of the video suddenly twisted abnormally.

“Huh?” For a second, he thought there was something wrong with the monitor, but that wasn’t the case. It was the space itself. Ripples spread out like the aftermath of a stone thrown into a pond—but in empty space. “Wh-what the…?”

“Oh? Is this your first time seeing it, Shido?” Kotori asked, as the distortion grew even larger.

He thought he caught a glimpse of a tiny light, and then he heard a tremendous roar, and the screen went white.

“—!”

Even though he knew it was only happening on the monitor, he reflexively covered his face with his arms. When he opened his eyes a few seconds later, willing the strangely intense pounding of his heart to slow, the screen showed an entirely new scene.

There was a hole in the town. That was the only way he could describe it. Part of the street where buildings stood only an instant ago had been scooped out like a shallow bowl. The shops and lights and electricity poles and even the pavement were all gone. And the surrounding area looked like a massive hurricane had ravaged it, perhaps because of the blowback from the explosion. It looked very much like the place where he had met Tohka for the first time a month earlier. In other words, this was a…

“Spacequake…!” Shido concluded, voice shaking.

“Yes.” Kotori nodded. “The instantaneous damage brought about by the distortion of space when a Spirit manifests in this world.”

He’d seen the ruined buildings and burned-out landscape any number of times before, but this was the first time he’d seen the moment of the explosion. His palms were slick with sweat. He’d thought he knew what a spacequake was, but now he felt the horrible truth of it in his bones. The town, the space where people lived their lives, destroyed in an instant. The sheer terror of it all.

“But the scale of the explosion this time was small, hmm?” Kotori said.

“It does look that way, yes,” Vice Commander Kyouhei Kannazuki, the tall man in attendance behind her, replied. “Fortuitously—is what I’d like to say, but we are dealing with Hermit here.”

“Mm, right,” Kotori agreed. “She does have a pretty subdued personality for a Spirit.”

Shido silently poked himself in the forehead. This was a small explosion? For a second, he didn’t know what the two were talking about, but he soon remembered.

They were right. The scale of this spacequake was barely on the level of a dozen meters. For them, it was relatively slight. Of course, knowing this in his mind didn’t quiet his heart.

“Hey, Kotori?” he said, curious about one thing the vice commander had said. “What exactly is the ‘Hermit’?”

“Ohhh. The code name for the newest Spirit. Hang on a sec. Can you zoom in?” she asked the crew on the lower deck.

The camera panned in and approached a crater in the middle of town. And when the ground grew clearer, another change appeared on-screen.

“…Is it raining?” he murmured.

The display darkened abruptly, and drops of rain began to fall.

He quickly dismissed the sudden change in the weather—because in the center of the crater, he could see a small girl.

“…?!” He gasped. It felt like someone had reached into his chest and grabbed hold of his heart.

A girl was standing alone in the center of the screen. He’d seen her before.

“Th…at’s…”

A girl of maybe thirteen or fourteen with blue hair and a hood with bunny ears. Her coat was too big, and her outfit underneath was made of some mysterious material he couldn’t quite identify. On her left hand was a rabbit puppet with an absurd design.

As long as there was nothing wrong with his eyes and brain, there was no mistaking it. This was the girl he’d encountered on his way home from school the day before.

“…? What’s wrong, Shido?” Kotori asked, no doubt curious about the sudden change that had come over him.

He turned his attention to the screen once more to confirm that his visual organs were not playing tricks on him and then opened his mouth. “I…I’ve met her before…”

“What did you say? When exactly?”

“Just yesterday. On my way home from school, it suddenly started to rain…”

He picked through his memory to give her the general overview of what had happened the previous day.

Once he was done speaking, Kotori shouted a command to the crew on the lower deck. “Send me the numbers for the Spirit waves from sixteen to seventeen hundred hours yesterday to my terminal. Step on it!” She dropped her gaze to her personal display and ruffled her hair in annoyance. “…I can’t see any disturbance in the numbers. So it’s the same as with Tohka then? …Shido, why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”

“I—I couldn’t have. I didn’t know she was a Spirit when I met her…!” he cried, as the speakers on the Fraxinus bridge roared. “…?! What the—?”

“There’s a Spirit here,” Kotori snapped. “We’re not the only ones going to work.”

Shido flinched. “The AST?” he asked hesitantly.

“Mm-hmm.”

When he returned his eyes to the screen, smoke was curling up above the position of the girl—the Spirit known as Hermit. It must have been the aftermath of a missile. Around her, a group of people floated in the air, wearing showy mechanical armor. The Self-Defense Forces Anti-Spirit Team. The AST. Unlike Kotori’s organization, Ratatoskr, they were a special squad with the objective of annihilating the Spirits with firepower.

A small silhouette popped out of the smoke. Hermit. She twisted up into the air, brandishing the puppet on her left hand, weaving through the circle of AST members, and floating up into the sky.

The AST members reacted immediately and chased after her, firing an obscene amount of ammunition from the weapons they had equipped.

“…! Watch out!” Shido shouted reflexively, but a warning through a screen had no power, and the countless projectiles launched by the AST flew mercilessly toward Hermit. His eyes snapped open, and he gritted his teeth. “Those bastards… I mean, she’s just a little girl!”

“…Bit late for that, Shido,” Kotori said, rolling her eyes. “Didn’t you learn anything from Tohka? The AST doesn’t care what form the Spirit takes. All that matters is their duty to protect the world and eliminate this threat to humanity. That’s their most basic instinct.”

“B-but…,” he protested as the girl hopped up into the air from inside a cloud of smoke.

Hermit didn’t attempt anything resembling a counterattack, however. She was simply running away.

“That girl…isn’t fighting back?”

“No. As usual,” Kotori told him. “Hermit’s one of the most docile Spirits.”

“…So then—”

“If you’re looking for pity from the AST, you can forget it,” she said. “As long as she’s a Spirit.”

“…” He bit his lip at this curt response. He didn’t need her to tell him that. He knew as well as she did that the Spirit’s personality, her nature, didn’t matter to the AST. They were attacking an enemy that was a danger to this world. There was only one way to turn that on its head.

He clenched his fists so tightly, it was a wonder he didn’t start bleeding. “…Kotori.”

“What?”

“…As long as the girl doesn’t have any power as a Spirit, the AST will stop targeting her, right?” he asked quietly.

Kotori raised an eyebrow before turning her gaze in his direction. “Yes, that’s exactly right.”

“The spacequakes…will stop, right?”

“Yes.”

Shido fell silent for a few seconds and then took a deep breath. “And I can do that, right…?”

“If you still don’t believe it after everything that happened with Tohka, then I don’t know what to tell you.”

“…” Shido ran his hands through his hair and then announced his decision. “Help me, Kotori. I want to save her…!”

“Heh-heh.” Kotori flicked her lollipop stick up in delight. “There you are. That’s my big brother.” She turned and yelled toward the crew on the lower deck. “All personnel, prepare for type-one capture!”

“Roger!” The crew began to move at their consoles as one.

“Now, then.” She licked her lips. “Let’s get our date started.”

“Hey, Ms. Tama?” Having evacuated to the large shelter built below the high school, Tohka clutched the hem of her skirt to try and calm her racing heart as she spoke to Tamae sitting next to her.

“Y-you’re calling me that, too?” Tamae turned her face toward her, noticeably calmer than she had been in the hallway.

Tohka paid no attention to the objection in her eyes as she continued. “What exactly was that noise before? What is this place?”

“Wh-what are you talking abouuut?” Tama asked, surprised. “That was the alarm, the spacequake alarm. There’s a possibility of one, so we all evacuated to the underground shelter. We’ll be safe here.”

“Spacequake…?” Tohka cocked her head curiously to the side. “What’s that?”

“What?” Tama was even more surprised. “A spacequake is a spacequake. You don’t know what that is?”

“…Hmm.” Tohka pulled her mouth into a dissatisfied pout. It seemed like this spacequake or whatever was common knowledge. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked. Shido told her to keep from doing or saying anything conspicuous. She had to get through this without revealing her lack of knowledge.

Tama, however, interpreted the silence, hurriedly waving her hands in front of her. “Oh! No, no, it’s fine. Right, I guess there are some people who don’t know.”

“…Mm, sorry.”

“No, no,” Tama said and then snapped a finger up. “A spacequake is what we call the disasters that occur randomly over a wide area. Put simply, it goes like this: Randomly, somewhere in the world goes boom! There’s an explosion. We are all kinds of theories as to what it is, like a change in air pressure or something about plasma, but the cause is unknown.”

“An explosion?” Tohka frowned.

“Yes. The biggest one was thirty years ago. The Great Eurasian disaster. It was actually the worst catastrophe in history with more than a hundred and fifty million people killed.”

“Wh-what?! That sounds really dangerous!”

“It is. That’s why we evacuate to the shelter,” Tama explained, sounding increasingly like a teacher. “Well, spacequakes that big don’t happen anymore, but in the last few years, there have been frequent small explosions in this area.”

Tohka knitted her brows. “S-so then, where did Shido go at such a dangerous time?”

“Wha…? Uh, umm… Well.” Tamae pushed her glasses up with a troubled expression and looked around at the students in the area.

“…” Tohka clutched the hem of her skirt even more tightly. “Shido.”

Thump, thump. She heard a noise from her chest. She didn’t know why, but she had a very bad feeling. And when the thumping noise had reached a peak, she lifted her face with a gasp.

“Umm… He’s all right, I think. I can’t see him anywhere nearby. But I’m sure he just went back for something he forgot. I know he’s somewhere in the shelter.” Tamae returned her gaze to Tohka. “Huh…? Y-Yatogami?”

Tohka was gone.

“Phew… Is here good?” Shido said to the small earpiece in his right ear, after being sent to the ground via the transporter in the bowels of Fraxinus.

“Yes. The Spirit’s gone inside a building. Don’t make any mistakes on first contact.”

“Roger,” he replied, perspiring profusely, and took his hand away from the earpiece. He took a deep breath to calm his pounding heart.

He was inside the large department store that dominated one end of the shopping street.

Hermit apparently appeared fairly frequently, and when Reine combined her analyses of the Spirit’s mental state with the behavior patterns they’d observed, they had come up with a rough way forward. Naturally, that path might vary to a greater or lesser degree depending on the movement of the AST, but if things went south, they could recover Shido and head for the next expected location.

The CR unit, the AST’s main gear, was not suited to fighting indoors. They might try to destroy the building and smoke the Spirit out like they did with Tohka, but for the time being, at any rate, they would wait for the Spirit to come out of the building. And that brief time—from a few minutes to half an hour—was critical for Shido to talk with the Spirit on the battlefield.

“…”

The middle of April. He remembered how he had spoken with Tohka while Ratatoskr whispered instructions in his ear via this very earpiece. He never dreamed he would be back on the battlefield before a month was out. But his back was against a wall here.

For whatever reason, Shido had an incredible power. He’d been told that he could use this power to stop both the spacequakes and the attacks on the Spirits. And this was exactly what he himself wanted.

“Still, though…” He sighed. The way to exercise this power and put an end to all the damage was to seduce a Spirit and kiss her. For Shido, the hurdle here was pretty high.

“Shido. Hermit’s signal is somewhere on this floor,” Kotori said.

“…!” He froze.

“Did you come to pick on Yoshinon, too?” a voice suddenly called down from above.

He jerked his head up and saw the girl in question, Hermit, floating upside down in defiance of the laws of gravity.

“Bad boy. Yoshinon’s really nice. Not fair to play mean tricks—hmm?” The girl spun around in the air and landed feetfirst on the floor. And then she opened and closed the puppet’s mouth. “Oh-ho! Why, if it isn’t the lucky perv!”

The puppet stared hard at his face and deftly clapped its hands. He wondered how she was moving it with just the one hand. But he couldn’t let his attention be taken up with such questions now.

“Stand by,” Kotori instructed in his ear.

Kotori stared at the three choices displayed on the main monitor of the Fraxinus bridge and licked her lips. Also shown on the monitor was a torso shot of Hermit, together with her various parameters and several text windows. From any angle, it looked like a romance simulation game—the screen of a so-called dating sim.

“Choices, people!” she barked.

The crew on the lower deck of the bridge pressed their buttons.

The results were soon shown on the small display at Kotori’s seat: (1), (2), (3)—all with the same number of votes.

“What? It’s gotta be two! That typical dating sim jibe! It’s definitely the second one!” a member of the crew insisted.

A voice quickly rose from another part of the bridge. “Isn’t that risky given we don’t really know the girl’s personality? One is the compromise here.”

“No, no, from this data, we know Hermit basically doesn’t attack humans! We should go with three for the win!”

“…Hmm.” Listening to the competing appeals from three different directions, Kotori put a hand to her chin. And then she moved toward the mic and opened her mouth. “Shido, go with number three.”

“…What the…?” Shido muttered, butt on the floor, listening to the instruction delivered to his ear. It was just too weird.

“Hmm? What’s happening?” The puppet neatly cocked its head to one side.

There was no time to think. Shido quickly got to his feet and set one foot up on a display chair nearby. “Heh. Don’t know anyone fitting that description. I’m just a passing stranger,” he said, sounding uncomfortable, and gave his hair a toss.

To be honest, he was incredibly embarrassed.

“…” Hermit’s puppet simply gaped.

A few seconds passed.

“…H-hey, Kotori,” Shido grumbled. “It’s your fault we’re in this weird mood…”

“Pft! Ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” The puppet burst out laughing and shook its head from side to side. “Aaah, you’re surprisingly droll! Ah-ha-ha! What ancient past did you dig that line out from?!”

“Ha-ha-ha… I’m so glad you enjoyed it.” He grinned along with the puppet. He thought droll was also fairly dated, but he kept that to himself.

“See?” Kotori said, all proud.

“Yeah, fine, sorry,” he replied in a quiet voice before turning back to Hermit.

“Aah, but, Lucky Perv.” The puppet turned its gaze toward him at the same time. “Weird place to run into you. Ah-ha-ha! Plenty glad to see you, though. Seems like everyone just hates Yoshinon. Soon as we get yanked out, they start pew-pew-pewing at us.” The puppet laughed again.

“That’s one upbeat Spirit, hmm?” Kotori asked.

For once, he and Kotori were thinking the same thing.

But he was curious about one thing Hermit said.

“So…uh, Yoshinon is…?” Shido asked.

“Aah, what an oversight!” The puppet opened its mouth wide in surprise. “That Yoshinon would forget to introduce Yoshinon! Yoshinon is Yoshinon’s n-a-m-e. Cute, huh? Right?”

“Y-yeah.” He nodded, overwhelmed by the puppet’s intensity. “…It’s a good name.”

“Yoshinon, huh?” Kotori’s voice in his right ear was questioning. “Hmm, so this Spirit has its own name, unlike Tohka.”

“Mm.”

She was right. Tohka hadn’t had a name. Shido was the one who gave her the name Tohka.

The puppet brought its face in close, interrupting this line of thought. “Soooo? What’s your name?”

“Oh! Right. I’m Shido. Shido Itsuka.”

“Shido, hmm? Pretty cool name you got there. Not as great as Yoshinon, though.”

“Y-yeah… Thanks. Umm…Yoshinon?”

“Right here! You called? Yoshinon is impressed with your communication skills, folding a name you just learned into the conversation!” The puppet spread its arms out in an exaggerated gesture.

“Oh, it’s no big deal or anything, but, ummm…” He smiled in return. “Yoshinon’s not the puppet’s name. It’s yours, right?” Shido made eye contact with the girl with blue hair.

“…” The puppet’s sunny chatter stopped abruptly.

Beep! Beep! He heard an alarm through his earpiece.

“Shido!” Kotori cried. “Her mood is plummeting. What exactly did you say?”

“Huh…? Oh, I just—I was only wondering why you were only speaking through ventriloquism,” he naively said.

The puppet loomed even closer. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, Shido. What’s ventriloquism?” Same easygoing tone. And it was a puppet, so it still had the same look on its face, but Shido felt pressure for some reason and took a step back.

“O-oh… It’s—”

“Shido. We can think about reasons later. Right now, you have to get that Spirit’s mood back up,” Kotori instructed.

“R-right!” he said, looking anywhere but the puppet. “Yoshinon is just Yoshinon! Aah… Ha-ha… Ha.”

“Oh, you! You’re a real scamp, Shido!” the puppet cried, the dreadful awe of a moment ago dissipating as though it had never been.

“Wh-what was that just now?” he muttered.

“No idea,” Kotori replied. “Well, however friendly she seems, you’re up against a Spirit, after all. No letting your guard down.”

“Umm.” He didn’t know what to say next.

“Don’t just stand there,” Kotori said with annoyance. “Do something so the Spirit doesn’t run off.”

“…Wh-what…?”

“That is so obviously obvious. You are in a department store, aren’t you? Just be all, hey, if you’re free, let’s go on a date. Listen. The key here is that it’s not ‘what about a date?’ It’s ‘let’s go on a date.’ Don’t give her the choice.”

“Uh…huh.” Shido was a little daunted, but nevertheless, he turned back to Yoshinon and with no preamble whatsoever, he uttered the words exactly as he’d heard them. “I-if you’re free, let’s go on a date.”

“…Just like that? You could try and sound a little more natural.” Kotori’s exasperation came through loud and clear.

Yoshinon didn’t seem the least bit perplexed at the sudden invitation. The puppet clapped its small hands together, thrilled at the mere idea of a date.

“Ooh! Ooh! Yes! You don’t look like much, but you do make the bold proposals, don’t you? Hoo-hoo, of course, that’s a yessir, you bet. I mean, I finally met someone I can really talk to. Yoshinon’d actually like to ask you out!” The puppet cackled with laughter.

“O-oh yeah…?” He smiled.

“Well, let’s just call this one a win then.” Kotori sighed.

Shido started walking through the department store with Yoshinon.

“…” Clad in her wiring suit, ready for battle with her Outrange stuffed with all the ammunition it could handle, Origami floated in the sky above the department store. Several other AST members similarly equipped bobbed in the area, and the mood was tense.

The AST—Anti-Spirit Team—was the most specialized of all the special units in the Self-Defense Forces. Using the Realizer, a device that re-created fantasy in reality, this team fought back against the world-killing catastrophes that were the Spirits. But because there were few people who could use the Combat Realizer unit, equipment that adapted the Realizer for the purpose of battle, some team members were not actually enlisted, like Origami.

She lived outside of the garrison and attended school, mobilizing only in the event of an emergency. She was something like a reserve officer from the Self-Defense Forces who was mobilized extremely often.

“…”

Raindrops beat down mercilessly on the surface of the Territory deployed around her. It had been nearly an hour since the Spirit—Hermit—entered the building. And she stubbornly remained there, showing no sign of herself to the outside world.

“Someone’s persistent, hmm?” came the voice of her squad captain, Ryouko Kusakabe, over her comm. “Pretty unusual for Hermit to stay in one place for this long. She’s usually more like fwp, fwp! Twisting around in the air.”

Exactly. Hermit’s behavioral pattern was basically constant flight. No matter how hard Origami and her squad came at her, she never counterattacked; she just ran. Origami would not be particularly happy if Hermit had learned how to pass the time until she was Lost inside of a building.

“Possibility of attack?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“I put in a request, at any rate.” Ryouko’s voice came back almost like a sigh. “They said to stand by.”

“Repair’s possible if the building’s destroyed.”

“Well, thinking about it logically, that’s true. But it’s not so easy. It costs money to get the relief corps moving. And above all else, Princess was one thing, but our target now’s the little bug Hermit, you know?”

“…”

Princess.

Origami moved her eyebrows slightly at this category name. She didn’t know how it happened, but the Spirit who held that designation was currently attending her school as a human girl, Tohka Yatogami. As soon as she became aware of Tohka’s presence, she had reported to Ryouko. But she had been denied permission to attack because they couldn’t confirm a Spirit signal in her for some reason. She pushed back and had them check her papers, but they found nothing out of the ordinary there, either.

Although it vexed Origami beyond belief, at present, at least, Tohka was a resident of Japan and thus to be protected by Origami and her team.

“…?”

Abruptly, she caught a flash of beautiful hair the color of darkness on the edge of her field of view. Hair just like Tohka’s. Origami narrowed her eyes.

She turned her face downward, toward the rainy main street, devoid of people.

“…” But she saw no sign of Tohka there.

She shook her head silently. Maybe she was just nervous. She couldn’t let her nerves allow the Spirit to escape her. She let out a deep breath and sharpened her focus as she continued to stand on guard.

Shido wondered how long it had been since he’d run into Yoshinon. They were walking around the department store, having a lively conversation. Kotori was giving him instructions, but Yoshinon seemed to have a strangely low threshold for what was funny and cackled with laughter at the slightest thing. The numbers were good on the bridge of Fraxinus where they were monitoring her mental state. Things were proceeding so smoothly, he almost wondered if that sudden change in mood earlier had been all in his mind.

“Hmm, this is going surprisingly well,” Kotori observed. “Maybe she’s just the type to latch on to people. Your affection rating is excellent, too. I doubt she’d turn you down if you asked for a kiss right now?”

“…Whoa, whoa.” Shido nervously touched his face, not knowing if she was joking or serious.

He was actually surprised himself at how things were going. Tohka was able to converse more or less normally now, but when he’d first met her, she was extremely distrustful of humans, and she’d nearly killed him at the slightest misstep on his part.

“Chatting suuuure iiiiis fuuuuun.” The puppet flapped its mouth open and closed. “Those people are such boors, y’know?”

“Ha… Ha-ha.” He laughed in vague response.

Something was bugging him, though. He’d wanted nothing more than to engage the Spirit in conversation, and with the numbers for mood and affection going up, there was no problem there. Or at least there shouldn’t have been.

“…” He glanced over at the girl manipulating the puppet. When he’d met her yesterday and again today, the puppet alone spoke at length and rather eloquently through her little ventriloquist act; the mouth of the girl herself never so much as twitched. Almost like… Right, like a puppeteer in traditional puppet theater.

“Ohhh?” The puppet looked at him abruptly, and Shido twitched.

“…!”

“Woooooow! What’s that, huh?!” It flapped its hands excitedly and trotted off. It was the girl’s legs that were doing the running, naturally.

What had caught Yoshinon’s interest was a small jungle gym for children in one corner of the toy department. The girl deftly scrambled up the ridiculously colorful plastic castle with both feet and her right hand.

“Mwa-ha-ha! How d’you like this, Shido? Pretty cool, huh? Yoshinon’s cool, yeah?” it asked, excited, once she reached the peak.

“Wh-whoa, it’s dangerous to stand up there.” He raced over to the jungle gym. He knew it was just an indoor set for children and not that high off the ground, but she’d still be hurt if she fell from the top. And yes, he knew that she could fly, but somehow the image of her slipping and falling the previous day lingered inside his brain.

But Yoshinon shook the puppet hand, looking unhappy. “Aah, come on! I’m asking if I’m cool or not—uh! Ah, ah, wah?!”

“Wha—?!”

Yoshinon lost her balance dancing and waving her hands on top of the jungle gym and came crashing down on top of Shido. He fell to the floor, crushed by the small girl.

“Ngh… Nah,” he groaned as he turned over. For some reason, his front teeth hurt. And then he noticed that something was off.

The symmetrical face and blue hair of the girl in front of him. He felt a curiously soft sensation on his lips.

It took a few seconds before his brain understood exactly what was going on.

“Wow. You get the job done, Shido.” This was unexpected even for Kotori.

And of course it was. After all, Shido was currently exchanging a kiss with the girl who’d fallen on him from above.

“…” Without a word, Yoshinon lifted herself up, and their lips finally pulled apart.

He hadn’t planned it, but…he’d kissed her. And that should have sealed her power. However…he wasn’t sure what the issue was, but he hadn’t felt that warmth flowing into his body the way he had when he kissed Tohka the month before.

The siren blasted once more from the other side of his earpiece.

“Wha…?” he said, furrowing his brow. So her power wasn’t sealed?

This alarm was the one that sounded when the Spirit fell into a bad mood and Shido was in danger. Which meant that right now Yoshinon was—

“Ouch…” The voice that came from the puppet’s mouth was even. “Sorry ’bout that, Shido. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Huh?” Dazed, he opened his eyes wide. Yoshinon didn’t seem at all angry. In which case, what exactly was the alarm in his ear all about?

“Shido, we’ve got an emergency,” Kotori said, unusually panicked. “Probably the worst thing possible.”

“Huh…? What on earth…?” He heard the crunch of a hard footstep from behind and shuddered. He looked back ever so timidly to find an entirely unexpected face there. His eyes flew open wide. “T-Tohka…?”

Yes, Tohka, who was supposed to have evacuated to the underground shelter at Raizen High School. She had gotten rained on at some point; she was completely drenched. Her shoulders were heaving as she panted for breath, as if she had run there at top speed.

“Shido,” Tohka said, interrupting his thoughts, as she shook herself slowly. A chill ran up his spine, even though she had only spoken his name. “…What are you doing?”

“…Wh-what…?” He unconsciously touched his lips at this question and then immediately thought the better of it and hid his hands behind his back.

Clearly not caring much for this gesture, Tohka screwed up her face like a child and squeezed a trembling voice out from the depths of her throat. “I—I was so worried…”

“Huh…?”

“How could you be making out with some giiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrl?!” she shouted and stomped a foot on the floor.

Bam! The ground collapsed where her heel struck, and cracks radiated outward.

“Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-wha…?” He opened his eyes all the way, a shiver of fear running through him.

There was no way an ordinary teenage girl could make the floor cave in just by stomping on it. Of course, Tohka was no ordinary teenage girl. But with her Spirit powers sealed, she shouldn’t have had anything beyond average physical strength.

“Wh-what’s going on, Kotori…?!” he asked his earpiece.

“Come on,” she replied with a sigh. “I’ve told you a few times now. There’s a Path running between you and Tohka, and when her mental state becomes unstable, it’s possible for the power to flow back a little.”

“H-huh? So what, you’re saying Tohka’s mental state is unstable?”

“Yes. Do something to put her in a better mood before this gets worse.”

“E-easy for you to say. What am I supposed to…?”

Tohka walked over to Shido and Yoshinon and looked back and forth between them with sharp eyes. “…Mmmmm.” She pursed her lips and glared at Shido while she snapped a finger out at Yoshinon. “Shido. Was your ‘important thing’ meeting this girl?”

“Oh, uh, th-the thing is…,” he stammered. On paper, yes, that was exactly right. But he doubted that Tohka would understand his true intent in her current state if he said yes.

“Aaah, hooo boy… So that’s it?” Yoshinon said shrilly, recovering from the surprise of Tohka’s appearance. Shido had no idea how the Spirit was doing it, but the rabbit puppet wore a mischievous smile. “So, um, you are?”

“…Tohka,” Tohka replied indignantly.

“Dear, dear Tohka. I hate to be the one to break the news, but looks like Shido here’s over you.”

“Wha—?” Tohka gasped.

“…?!” Shido held his breath and turned toward the puppet.

“Oh, well, I’ll try to be delicate. Sounds to me like he blew you off and sidled up to ol’ Yoshinon here. That’s pretty final, don’cha think?” The puppet looked at her questioningly.

“…” Tohka’s shoulders trembled, and she looked like she was about to burst into tears.

“Wh-what are you—hngh?!” Shido started to yell, but Tohka slapped a hand across his mouth.

“Shido, be quiet a sec,” she told him with a forcefulness that brooked no argument, as she yanked his cheek to its limit with viselike strength.

“…! …!”

“Ah, you know, I’m sorry.” The puppet looked utterly delighted as it continued. “Yoshinon’s just too hot. It’s a real problem.”

“Ngh. Nnnngh.” Tohka clenched her jaw so tightly, he could almost hear the creaking of the joint.

“Now, I’m not saying it’s your fault or anything, okay, honey? It’s just, well, you can’t go blaming Shido there for ditching you and running into Yoshinon’s arms.”

For a while, Tohka simply stood there, shoulders shaking, as she pinched Shido’s cheek, but then she cried out, as if her patience had reached its limit. “Unh… Ungah!” Finally, she jerked her hand away from Shido’s face. “Sh-shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up! There’s no way! That’s impossible!”

“Yesss, well, protest all you want, darling, but the fact remains. Come now, Shido, go on and tell her. Tell Tohka that you don’t want her anymore.”

Tohka grabbed the puppet’s chest and yanked it up. Of course, it was just a small puppet and easily slipped off the girl’s hand into the air.

“…?!” Her puppet taken from her, the girl opened her eyes wide. Her face drained of color, and sweat beaded on her forehead. Her breathing became visibly ragged, and her fingertips began to twitch.

“Y-Yoshinon?” Shido turned concerned eyes on the girl and the dramatic change in her, still rubbing his throbbing cheek.

Tohka seemed to not have noticed that something had come over Yoshinon. With eyes sharp as knives, she interrogated the puppet she clutched in both hands. “I—I—! He does want me! Shido… Shido said it was okay for me to be here! You’re done making fun of me! Hey! How about you say something already?!” She held the puppet up by the neck and shook it, seemingly convinced that it had been the source of the voice.

“…! …!” Yoshinon cried out silently at this sight. Her whole body was shuddering, like the easygoing banter of earlier had never happened. She pulled her head deeper into her hood, as if to hide her eyes, and tugged gingerly on Tohka’s skirt.

“Mm. Wh-what?” Tohka glanced down at her. “Don’t interrupt. I’m talking to this kid here right now.”

“Please… Give it back…” Yoshinon bounced up and down, trying to take the puppet Tohka held up high in both hands.

Now that Shido was thinking about it, this was probably the first time since he’d met her the day before that he was hearing her actual voice.

“What are you doing, Shido? Now you’ve gone and knocked off Yoshinon, too. Hurry and stop them!” Kotori’s voice was insistent in his right ear.

“H-hey, Tohka. Um,” he said after some hesitation, “…maybe you could give that back?”

“…!” Tohka’s eyes flew open in shock. “Shido… So you’re actually siding with…this girl instead of me!”

“H-huh? No, that’s not what I—,” he protested.

Yoshinon threw her right hand up into the air and swung it down. “Zadkiel—Freezing Puppet!”

A massive puppet smashed through the floor in front of him.

“Wha…?!” he yelped.

It was a short and stout stuffed animal, about three meters tall. Its surface was smooth like metal with a white pattern carved into it. And he could see ears long like a rabbit’s on top of what looked like the head.

“A—a puppet…?!” he cried.

“Wh-what is this?!” Tohka shouted.

Yoshinon pressed up against the back of the puppet that had materialized from below her feet and pushed her hands into the holes there. In the next instant, the puppet’s eyes glowed red, and it shook its sluggish-looking bulk as it called out in a low roar. Something like white smoke oozed from its body.

“It’s freezing…!” He instinctively stepped backward. The smoke was extremely cold, like the gas released from liquid nitrogen.

“Now she manifests an Angel…?!” Kotori shouted. “Shido, this is bad. Get out of there!”

“H-huh…?! Wh-what’s an Angel?!” he cried out without thinking.

“That thing in front of you! The ultimate shield to protect a Spirit, the most powerful lance in partnership with the Astral Dress! The miracle made manifest, what makes a Spirit a Spirit! Did you forget about Tohka’s Sandalphon?!”

Sandalphon. The name made Shido’s eyebrows jump up.

The massive throne that Tohka had manifested last month when she had her Spirit powers. And the sword. That’s what Kotori was talking about. It was very obvious. Which meant that even though he’d kissed Yoshinon, he hadn’t managed to seal her Spirit powers.

Yoshinon pulled her hand back slightly, and the puppet—Zadkiel—leaned back with a growl.

The windows in the walls of the department store started to shatter, and rain gusted in from outside. Actually, that wasn’t quite it. It wasn’t that the windows had broken and the rain had come in—it was more like the droplets of rain had beaten and broken the glass from the outside with incredible force.

“Eek?!” His eyes widened in surprise, and he looked at the puppet towering before him, knees weak.

Fwp! The doll turned toward Tohka.

“…! Tohka!”

Her name had barely flown out of his mouth before he was grabbing her hand and pulling her down to the floor, covering her with his own body.

“Wha—?! Shido?!” Tohka shrieked, as a fearsome number of what looked like bullets passed through the space where she had been standing a millisecond earlier. They gouged holes in the merchandise before melting into transparent liquid and flowing along the floor.

“I-is that rain?!” he shouted.

Raindrops hardened like hail had ignored gravity and shot at Tohka from the broken windows.

“…” And then Zadkiel, controlled by Yoshinon, moved.

Shido immediately turned his back to the Angel to protect Tohka.

Zadkiel kicked at the ground with a nimbleness that belied its sluggish silhouette, passed through the spot where Tohka had been, and leaped outside through a broken window, grabbing the puppet that had fallen from Tohka’s hands with what would have been its mouth on its way.

“…” Shido watched Yoshinon disappear before opening his mouth. “W-we’re saved…yes?”

“Yes. The signal’s withdrawn completely,” Kotori said. “You really play fast and loose, Shido.”

“Ah… But why all of a sudden—?”

“Whatever! Will you get away from me already?!” A hand grabbed his face and rolled him away.

“Waah…?!” He didn’t have to wonder about whose hand it was.

Tohka, who had only an instant earlier been in his arms, was gritting her teeth, her cheeks flushed, looking for all the world like a child having a tantrum as she squared her shoulders and stood up.

“T-Tohka…?”

“…Don’t touch me!”

“Ow…!” He frowned and yanked his hand back.

She looked shocked for a moment, but she quickly groaned and whirled her face away.

“Wh-what’s wrong, Tohka…?”

“Shut up! Don’t talk to me! Y-you care about her more than me…!”

“H-huh? What are you—?” he began, stunned.

“Unh! Unh! Unh! Unnnnnnnh!!” She stomped away. With each stomp, the ground caved in.

“Hey—Whoa?!” Unable to keep his balance, Shido tumbled over.

“Notice to all AST personnel. Spirit’s on the move. Once the signal is confirmed, attack will recommence.”

The report came to Origami as she stood in her full-body wiring suit.

“Roger,” she replied and readjusted her grip on Oldest, the anti-Spirit Gatling gun she held in both hands. Her current equipment was Outrange, which could unleash a barrage of troublesome bullets from outside the target’s range.

The rain, which had started at the same time as Hermit appeared, bounced off the wall of her Territory, as she kept her guard up and focused on the building and the Spirit signal displayed directly on her retinas.

Boom! The wall of the building was blown outward, sending a cloud of dust up, and the Spirit signal projected on her retinas blinked.

“Fire!”

At the order from her squad leader, Ryouko, Origami and her squad mates pulled their triggers. Hundreds of bullets were sucked into the building with a wild roar, sending up massive plumes of dust and smoke.

“…” She narrowed her eyes, finger still on the trigger. Her super visual acuity refined by her Territory caught a shadow moving at high speed in the smoke. Silently, she gave commands in her mind, and the small missile pods on her legs were deployed, firing ten shots from each leg, homing missiles aimed for Hermit.

“—?!”

Hermit had slipped through the anti-Spirit Gatling gun bullets in the rain, but now she turned her eyes on the homing missiles headed straight for her, a look of surprise on her face.

“…!” But she quickly pulled her hands back, and the puppet danced lightly up into the air, shaking off the pursuit of the homing missiles.

By then, however, the other AST members had also caught sight of the Spirit. Homing missiles shot in from the rear, while numerous Gatling gun bullets rained down from all directions. It was impossible for her to evade this barrage.

“Eek—”

Origami heard something like a small shriek as the bullets all hit their target. A massive explosion rolled up into the sky.

The Astral Dress that the Spirit wore likely nullified the majority of the attacks, but even if Princess might have walked away unscathed, Hermit wouldn’t.

Indeed, she could see the massive puppet dropping downward where the bullets converged.

“Yes! Can’t slack off now, though! Fire! Fire!” Ryouko’s command echoed in her ears.

But Origami’s finger on the trigger twitched. She could see the Spirit and the massive puppet melting away into space.

“Is it…Lost?” she heard one of the AST squad members say.

They called it “Lost” when the Spirit returned to the alternate space they referred to as a parallel world. The objective of the AST was to eradicate the Spirits with firepower, but because it was extremely difficult to completely defeat a Spirit, battles generally ended when they were Lost.

Sun poured through a break in the clouds. The rain beating down on her Territory stopped abruptly.

“All personnel, return to base,” Ryouko commanded.

“…”

Origami lowered the barrel of her gun and relaxed from her battle stance.

“…?” When she followed to return to base as instructed, she spotted something curious with her Territory-enhanced vision and temporarily dropped altitude.