Rain in Tokyo fell with the comforting illusion that it could make the world collapse on itself all at once: the city was a tin drum, roaring and still and overflowing. In the gray of the howling wind, small squares of colored light punctured the skyline: pink televisions, lime green signs on the closed doors of shops, street lamps, white billboards, all echoing each other like lonely bugs across empty plazas. In the weather's clamor, everything but their electric whir was silent.
From within the cover of a parking lot roof, a small hand ventured out into the weight of the downpour, withdrew, returned. Its owner shook off the fat drops, still turned and drilling her eyes in the deep volumes of air.
"It's a real deluge out there!" She called back to the glowing figure waiting by her bags. "We haven't had weather like this in... forever! Look at it; it has to mean
something right?"
The spirit looked lazily back at her, a sharp blade of wind scraping up and between their ears. "Go back to Celeste's as much as you'd like Arisu," she said coolly, "but you know I disapprove."
Turning around, the girl swung down to grab the leather straps of her bag off of the concrete. "I think I'll be able to survive your disapproval." She threw the jangling mass across her shoulders and adjusted it onto her back. Glancing around at the open car lot, she reached behind her neck to pull her hair from under the bag. Rain continued to clatter onto the world outside. "Look Bastet..." she said, more quietly, "I just don't want to miss my chance to find the others.
"I know."
"And... I think I miss the rain."
"Yes. Yes, I know." The cat got up, eyes brushing the white painted lines that slipped away at her feet: they formed a pattern which when rinsed of its searing tire marks could start resembling the pale ribs of painting, as if unveiling some unforeseen mystical ability in the old faded concrete. "Well come on then," she said, "let's be one our way."
Arisu grabbed the first metal beam to fall under her hand and turned the corner under the rusty scaffolding, humming an old pop song she'd forgotten the lyrics to under her breath. They moved, soaked, and their presence drowned by water. Bastet skulked behind her student, occasionally stoping to glance into the depths of the rain, freezing at any sound or movement. A bright oracle bell dangled at the girl's side by her glinting claws, the ancient weapons damaging the already frayed bloc of technology rhythmically, almost methodically, with every step of the way.
Arisu's humming came to a note: Bastet paused entirely. "Stop."
The entrance to a small court garden had appeared, and already the darkness of the leaves could be smelled in the wind, but Arisu's stride went uninterrupted. "Nope," the girl whispered, but wasn't stopping. "You'll just have to deal with my tone deaf singing forev-"
"Stop walking." The cat sprung up, grabbing her student by the straps of her bag. "
Stop walking."
Surprised at first, Arisu fell into a balanced crouch, turning to receive her spirit's tacit message of alarm. She mouthed an apology: silently slipped on her golden claws.
"Around the corner: a spirit and a shaman." The cat's voice was hard. "Both unfamiliar, but not hostile. What do you do?" The girl pursed her lips, was silent: got up.
"I'm just going to ask them who they are." So she turned the corner and did.