Her whiskers had grown back. But beyond that, Yimi hadn't changed — no weight gain, no growth spurt.
She was a little lost. When would she finally grow into a big cat (a human)?
Then again, saying nothing had changed wasn't entirely accurate. For instance — something even the little cat herself hadn't noticed — she'd been eating plenty these past two days without once feeling the urge to mark a spot.
Not that it mattered much. Yimi was the kind of cat whose fur was long enough to cover everything down there. Elegant to look at, sure, but if you didn't groom carefully, bathroom trips got messy.
"You stinking cat... a panda?" The homeowner who'd heard the commotion on the balcony rushed over. The moment she spotted Yimi's coloring, her eyes lit up. She crept closer carefully. "Sweetie, hold still... Auntie's not a bad person."
Her other hand reached for the butterfly net propped in the corner.
Yimi leaped clear with catlike grace and bolted along the rooftops, trailed by the anguished wail of a woman convinced she'd just lost $50,000.
She could still smell other Corpse Parts in this town. One of them was very close to the jerk she'd just fought — and the scent of many, many people surrounded it.
The remaining two were clustered together, in the direction of the gold-toothed man who'd sent a whole posse chasing after her earlier.
Yimi raised her head and thought it over. Going after the lone piece probably meant getting ganged up on by a crowd.
The little cat assumed everyone had a Stand ability.
「Host has been reminded multiple times: you have one free gacha draw available. Please use it promptly. There is a chance of obtaining items that enhance Host's capabilities.」
"Mew?" Why didn't you say so sooner?
System: "..."
"Draw!"
A laughably crude capsule machine materialized on Yimi's retinas, followed by an agonizingly drawn-out animation designed purely to build suspense. The capsule finally popped open to reveal a red beetle.
[Kabuto Zecter · Casual Experience Edition]: Use to transform into Kamen Rider Kabuto.
Description: Irresistibly appealing to boys everywhere. The "Casual Experience" tag lowers the transformation requirements. That said — Kamen Rider Den-O let a little girl transform just by sticking a ribbon on, but you should at least be a person, right?
Transformation requirement: Be a person.
"Mew?" Is this useful?
「Answering Host: currently, this is of zero help to you.」
"MROW!" What a waste.
She batted the thing with her paw. Hard, inedible-looking.
With no power-up to show for it, Yimi abandoned the hassle of trying to pick out the lone Corpse Part from that crowd and instead grabbed the useless beetle in her mouth, heading toward Gold Teeth's location.
"Hey, Johnny — I just thought of a really funny joke. Wanna hear it?" Gyro, freshly resupplied and back on the road, grinned at his traveling companion.
"Ha..." Johnny's temple glistened with a nervous sweat. He didn't look particularly interested.
"You don't wanna hear it?" Gyro's face fell.
"No, I do! I absolutely want to hear it!" Johnny scrambled to look eager.
Gyro cleared his throat and delivered: "What did the beach say when the tide came in?"
"Uh..."
Gyro: "Long time, no sea."
"...That's hilarious!" Johnny slapped on the praise immediately.
"Right? You think so too?" Gyro flashed his signature grill — a full set of gold teeth glinting in the sun.
"Absolutely. That joke alone could carry my entire year's worth of laughs. You could honestly go pro as a comedian!"
Applause concluded, Johnny caught a flicker of movement in his peripheral vision. A white mouse.
Finding a mouse in the open wilderness was perfectly normal. But a white one stood out.
There was nothing inherently special about the color. It was just that Johnny had once taken in a pure white mouse as a child — and it had become a lifelong inner demon.
"Danny..."
The name slipped out before he could stop it — the name he'd given his childhood pet.
And then he watched a round, adorable little cat snatch the white mouse up in her jaws.
"DAN—NY!"
"You've gotta be kidding me. This cat again?" Gyro stared flatly at the furball blocking their path. "I'm telling you, it's gotta be an assassin the President sent. What breed of cat can outrun a horse?"
Johnny slapped his own cheeks to compose himself. "You've got a point, Gyro. But right now the whole town's in an uproar over this cat. And I'm pretty sure the President was in that town too."
He rummaged through his pack, broke off a small piece of jerky, and tossed it toward Yimi. His index finger took aim — a blue fingernail detached on its own and began spinning around it.
This was his Stand ability: he could fire his rotating fingernails like bullets. At his current level, it was essentially a more portable handgun.
"You really do have a soft spot for critters, don't you, buddy? This thing's been tailing us for two days. No way it's all for a scrap of jerky." Gyro shook his head.
Yimi seemed oblivious to any threat. She lowered her head, accepted the offering, and ate. Then she looked up and studied them carefully.
The little cat eyed the two horses that had once chased her down with some lingering anxiety. She thought about the unpleasant experience of strong-arming Diego for his Corpse Part. Lesson learned — Yimi didn't go for the grab right away. She stood on her hind legs, deciding to say hello first.
Then she remembered that the last time she'd tried greeting someone, she'd scared them off. And that talking to Diego had only made him angry.
Yimi tried to recall how others had greeted her.
The demon had introduced himself when she was on the verge of passing out from hunger — she hadn't caught a word. But the Corpse's former host had left an impression. After all, he'd been the first person she'd ever heard speak after learning language.
Yimi opened her three-cornered mouth and, in a clear child's voice with stiff intonation, began to parrot:
"There is no absolute fairness. What you need most is what costs the most."
"Never trust a demon."
"Third place at the finish line."
Johnny: "..."
Gyro: "..."
A blue phantom seemed to shimmer in the background, accompanied by strange music.
"The cat... talked? And it sounded like a little kid..." This was far more entertaining than Gyro's corny jokes.
But what in the world was this little creature babbling about?
Gyro drew one of his Steel Balls on reflex. "What are you spacing out for, man? This is obviously a Stand user's trick! I knew there was no way something that small could outrun Valkyrie."
"Gyro — look at its eyes..." Johnny said quietly.
"Yeah, I noticed. That's the 'left eye' Diego took, isn't it?"
He didn't share Johnny's history of having known Diego since childhood, though not closely, but weeks of on-and-off skirmishes had given him a decent read on the man. At minimum, Gyro was confident Diego would never voluntarily hand over a Corpse Part.
"What I mean is, it's probably not an assassin sent by the President," Johnny said patiently. "The President is after the Corpse too. There's no way he'd send an assassin carrying a Corpse Part to hunt us down — the risk makes zero sense."
They were overthinking it, and that was starting to make Yimi unhappy, because the looks on their faces were exactly the same as the one Ted Khan had worn when she'd tried to say hello.