"Your Majesty wants to find that man?"
Arrietty tied a knot in Getsusa's hair to make a swing: "I can still smell the corpse. If we go out tonight, we might track him!"
"Call me Sen Getsusa."
"Yes, Your Majesty," she giggled, tiny feet braced on Getsusa's shoulder, right hand on the hilt of her sewing-needle sword.
"I can help, if you need it."
Getsusa wasn't fascinated by the killer—she was fascinated by the unread glyphs and that English word.
Cyttorak, rows of pictographs.
The girl sensed power in them.
Kill, leave words, kill again, leave more.
Her thoughts turned to sacrifice.
In a World with the Tontatta Tribe, such rites might actually summon something.
That possibility intrigued her.
"Curiosity killed the cat, and it can also—"
Hmm?
Arrietty murmured: "Grandpa says that; I still don't get it.
'Curiosity killed the cat, and it makes girls grow up.'
"What does it mean?"
Getsusa grinned, tapping her jade-green nail on her shoulder so the Little Knight could sit. "Too soon for you; you're too small. When you're bigger..."
"I'll always be this size!"
Arrietty pouted. "What's this 'makes girls grow up'? Does Grandpa know how to get big?"
Hmm... literally speaking, not just your Grandpa—lots of people... anyway, don't ask, my Little Knight.
Arrietty called her parents and carried the candy and bread inside.
Her father, Pod, regarded Getsusa with blank indifference.
Her mother, Homily, was seeing Getsusa for the first time.
The middle-aged woman was terrified, muttering nonstop, "My Lord Scissors! Oh! Borrower, my god!" while hiding behind her husband.
Only when Sen Getsusa took a ruby necklace from the jewelry box and offered it to her did the woman, face conflicted, shuffle out from behind her husband like a small animal testing unfamiliar ground, inching toward Sen Getsusa one hesitant step at a time.
She snatched the necklace and, as if in a tug-of-war, strained to drag it toward the door.
Her expression was twisted and desperate.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
In the end, Sen Getsusa couldn't bear to watch; she gently lifted Homily and Mr. Pod and sent them back.
After that, although Arrietty's parents still preferred not to meet Sen Getsusa, they quietly allowed Arrietty to run off and visit her often.
"Tonight? Tonight? Tonight? Look, I brought my weapon!"
The little person beamed up at Sen Getsusa, eager for praise.
It was clear the lady-knight had prepared thoroughly.
Her coral-pink hair, usually loose, was tied in a high ponytail tonight.
Instead of a cloak, she wore a snug fighting outfit.
A dusty belt held rows of small bottles and vials.
"What are these?"
"Potions for rats or cats."
Essentially chili powder.
Sen Getsusa hadn't copied her knight's look.
She wore a dress as usual: pale skirt, lace stockings, black shawl, and a wide-brimmed hat with a scrap of black veil across her face.
"Shall we go?"
"Onward, Your Majesty! I'll guard you through the night!" Arrietty knelt half on the hat brim, eyes sharp on the dark alley ahead, fingers on her sewing-needle sword.
Sen Getsusa laughed softly. "Just don't get eaten by a rat and I'll count myself lucky."
She didn't expect this tiny thing to be of real help, though the Profiler had once hinted that these little people's "racial bloodline" wasn't fully awakened.
The nighttime street was half quiet, half rowdy.
Here, Crows perched on roofs, faint lights flickered in small windows, and the empty alleys felt cold even in the wind.
In front of the tavern, a few drunks squatted, chatting over a puddle of spilled beer.
Street-walkers in skimpy clothes posed on the curb, hooking glances at passing men while flaunting their bodies.
The girl clicked along in her leather shoes, turning down the darker, quieter path on purpose.
Above, Arrietty sniffed the wind.
"This way, right—then turn!"
Sen Getsusa obeyed.
"Closer now!"
"Forward, my Queen!"
Arrietty, like a knight in armor standing absurdly on a prow, acted as pilot, excited as if the killer were her personal enemy.
After twenty minutes Sen Getsusa no longer needed her tiny knight's directions; the thick scent of blood was unmistakable even to her.
She was already two streets away from her lodgings.
The road turned muddy, tall houses gave way to squat shacks, coal cinders and filthy puddles everywhere.
The air reeked of dust, earth, and blood.
Sen Getsusa wrinkled her nose in disgust and stepped into the jumbled slum.
By the moon's reflection on the puddles, girl and knight picked their way through.
"Hold tight to my hair, or shall I set you somewhere?"
Arrietty rapped the hat brim with her needle. "I'm Your Majesty's knight—my turn to act!"
Sen Getsusa soothed the tiny figure while scanning the shadows.
Curiosity wasn't recklessness; she had studied the victims in the morgue.
The wounds from blunt or sharp tools showed the killer was merely human—perhaps below average.
The dead had barely struggled.
Either the murderer was a woman who lulled victims, or she struck from ambush.
In these slums full of lone street-walkers, the joy of butchering the weak—aside from any ritual—was likely what kept the killer hunting.
Sen Getsusa curled her lip: the prey was near.
She stopped at a crumbling apartment block.
The façade was patched and peeling, exposed red bricks in the sagging walls.
From the entrance, the stench of blood rolled out in waves.
There.
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