By the time Yimi's ears twitched and she noticed, it was already too late.
"Mrrrowp!"
Origami had grabbed her tail—and grabbed it firmly.
"Hah—!" The little girl instinctively snapped her mouth toward Origami's arm as a warning bite, then realized that the human skeletal layout made the maneuver physically impossible.
She switched to Plan B: drooped her ears and put on the most innocent face she could manage.
Then she suddenly remembered Shiori's warning—don't let the non-freeloader find out that Yimi and the cat are the same.
Yimi raised a hand. "Yimi is not a cat, okay?"
Origami stared expressionlessly at the tail in her grip, and the truth clicked into place. That was why this little girl always dressed like a boy.
She'd known it. There had been far too many inconsistencies for any of it to be coincidence. A Spirit had been living right beside her all along.
Yimi followed her gaze down to her own tail and tried again: "This one grows out of my butt."
"..."
Anger—yes, anger. And disgust.
She'd spent her time in that room turning everything over. As long as Shiori maintained that attitude, the outcome was set regardless of how the revenge went: a complete break. Only one ending.
So she had nearly resolved to cut ties with Shiori first—to go back to being a pure avenger, no entanglements with Spirits, like before. And then today, she discovered that the cat she'd been keeping for days was a Spirit who had been living right beside her the entire time.
She had even fed her with her own hands.
What did this cat mean to her? Nothing special—not a companion of years, not something her parents had left behind.
And yet, if she was being precise... there was something. Like when she'd returned carrying the full weight of betrayal and loneliness from the person she'd trusted most, and found the little cat waiting there, composed, right outside the door. Just for a moment, she'd felt as though the entire world contained nothing but one small cat keeping her company.
The greater the comfort of that moment, the greater the drop. Even if the little girl's face was perfectly innocent and sweet, the only thing filling her chest right now was the single, violent impulse to tear her apart.
"What is it you want?"
Connecting it all to Shiori's behavior lately—Shiori had known. One hundred percent. That was the part Origami found most unbearable. The person she'd trusted unconditionally had deceived her on every front.
"I'm making food for an injured person." Yimi held up the ladle and repeated herself: "Yimi is not a cat, okay?"
But this was a truth that could no longer be explained away.
Origami's gaze drifted to Yimi's bowl. There were still traces of cat food left in it.
The sharp, warm scent of tomato soup drifted through the air and reminded her stomach that she hadn't eaten since coming home—too low to bother.
She'd finished her cat food first, and then started making her dinner.
Origami looked down at the step stool by the girl's feet. The last time she'd had a fever, there had been two shoe-prints on top of it as well.
Going back further—she had been the one to bring the little cat home in the first place.
How long was this going to keep happening? A Spirit, persisting in showing her warmth—as though the universe itself was nudging her toward giving up on revenge.
Impossible. Over a cat she'd had for one week?
"I don't need it." Origami grabbed the little girl's arm and moved her aside.
Yimi: "?"
You don't need it. But the cat wants to eat.
The little girl planted her hands on her hips and glared with full righteous indignation, leveling a finger: "Scrub."
"..."
Origami didn't look at her. She drew a slow, deliberate breath and let it out. She turned, sat down, and fixed her attention on the pot—using the work to quiet the noise in her head.
Seeing her start to cook, Yimi stopped talking. She stood to one side and watched in silence.
About half an hour later, Origami set two bowls of noodle soup on the table—no slamming, no sound at all, as if she'd quietly sorted herself out in the interval.
"Eat."
"Mrrp?" Yimi sat down and picked up a single chopstick, regarding it with complete confusion.
She speared one noodle, lifted it very high, and then—it dropped.
"Wow!"
The splash of broth made her eyes water from the burn. She frantically rubbed her face and reflexively transferred the bad luck onto a distant shark somewhere far out at sea.
Origami made no move to teach her how to use chopsticks. She didn't even look up. "Please leave when you're done."
"Why?" Yimi didn't understand.
She kidnapped the cat. Now she wants to kick the cat out.
"I hate Spirits."
She hated them.
"What's a Spirit?"
"..."
Hearing those two words out of that mouth—something held in place by sheer rationality snapped all at once. Her mind went blank. She grabbed the little girl's arm, dragged her out the front door, and slammed it shut.
"Scrub!" came a sharp, clear yell from outside.
Origami didn't answer. She stood with her back against the door and stared at the living room. Near the entryway was a stack of delivery boxes she'd never thrown away—because the little cat had liked crawling inside them to play.
She stood there for who knew how long. Eventually, not a sound from the other side of the door.
"Good." Now, at last, she could be nothing but an avenger.
And she'd caught it early—only a week in. Better than building the kind of deep attachment she had built with Shiori before discovering the truth...
She had no appetite at all. She covered the bowl with cling wrap, then noticed a bag of millet in the kitchen, barely touched.
The signs had always been there. Someone as careful as Shiori would never have left millet sitting out of the refrigerator.
She picked it up. Dropped it in the trash.
"Disgusting..." She'd thought the only living thing keeping her company was a Spirit. She'd accepted comfort from a Spirit. She'd been looked after while sick by a Spirit. She'd been put in danger by Spirits and saved by yet another Spirit, and then it had acted like nothing had happened and come back to sit at her door—what was the point of that? Was it planning to keep living here, tormenting her?
A cool breeze drifted through the window left open for summer, brushing against pale skin. Oddly cold.
Of course—the heavy rain warning that had been on her phone all afternoon was rolling in exactly on schedule. Drops were already tapping against the windowpane.
More and more of them.
...
"Scrub." The evicted Yimi kicked at pebbles in the street, feeling miserable.
Big cats were a truly incomprehensible species. The cat felt terrible. And a little... wronged.
"It's raining."
She pulled her hood up and ran toward the park from memory. Somewhere along the way she felt a small twinge of regret. She should have stayed with Shiori. Found a chance to absorb big sis Yoshino's Reiryoku and push the Holy Corpse fusion to completion.
She transferred the misery of getting soaked onto some shark far out at sea, then quickened her pace to the sandpit—empty at this hour. She shifted back into cat form and crawled into the central pipe.
This spot was safe from flooding and the pipe above didn't leak. But the driving storm pushed rain in sideways at intervals, and in weather like this the pipes could collapse at any moment.
She really should get better at being a stray. Nights like this were made for apartment building hallways.
She yawned. Drowsiness came at last. The cat closed her eyes.
Sleep. Wake up and keep looking for the fragrant ones. Fight the First Spirit. Finish five tasks and go home...
An indeterminate stretch of time passed. The rain showed no sign of easing.
Perhaps it was conscience.
A white-haired girl in a raincoat came splashing through the deep puddles and crouched down, sweeping her flashlight across the mouths of the concrete pipes one by one.