"Natsumi, if I've done something to upset you I'll apologize—but please don't take it out on—huh?"
Perhaps it was the power radiating from the suddenly exposed Spirit Crystal that Ratatoskr had detected, or perhaps footage of Yimi escaping and being brought back had tripped the surveillance system. Either way, Shiori had materialized at exactly the worst possible moment Natsumi had imagined.
The instant Shiori registered what she'd glimpsed in her peripheral vision coming up the stairs, she yanked her earpiece out and tucked it into her pocket.
"Is that... Natsumi?"
"T-turn around, turn around, turn around, turn around!"
Natsumi crouched down, grabbed Yimi, and held her up as a shield between them—cat as body armor.
"Ha! I knew you'd show up, Itsuka Shiori. You planned all this together, didn't you—showing up right now to laugh at me? How nasty... just like me."
"Mrow!"
But the little cat wasn't particularly pleased with Shiori either. Right before Natsumi's bewildered eyes, she curled herself into a ball of fur on the ground. One-point screening, at best.
She turned into a cat... This was Haniel's ability—and it had just been stolen from her like that!
Given what had just happened, Natsumi didn't dare say a word about it, but she glared at Itsuka Shiori anyway, hackles rising: "And you show up at exactly this moment—you definitely planned this, didn't you, you exhibitionist deviant!"
"?"
Shiori was thoroughly confused. If anything, the exhibitionist here wasn't her.
She kept her voice as gentle as possible: "Can someone explain what happened? Why has Natsumi turned into a child? Or is this actually your true self?"
"Still playing dumb! You wanted her to steal my spiritual power, didn't you? You wanted to see me humiliated! Fine—here, look all you want!" She flung the small cat serving as her screen aside outright.
"Steal spiritual power? That was Yimi?" Shiori's mouth fell open. She looked at Yimi in genuine shock.
"Mrow." Lady, you've got the wrong cat.
The instant full-exposure situation was uncannily similar to all the times Shiori had sealed Tohka and the others. She didn't know the details of what had happened—but it seemed the other party had already received her comeuppance...
Shiori slipped off her outer jacket and draped it over Natsumi's shoulders. "Could you explain why you did what you did?"
Natsumi just bared her teeth. "You think I don't know what you're really doing? Fake concern—then the moment I let my guard down, you rip the jacket off in front of everyone, don't you? You're getting back at me for kidnapping your little sister."
"Who would do something like that...? And speaking of which, you're the one who kidnapped Yimi."
"Mrow." Yimi is innocent.
"Anyway, let me call and get some clothes bought for you first—"
"Oh, so you're buying me a clown costume to humiliate me? A hideous thing like me only deserves that—it would at least improve the overall look. That's what you're thinking, isn't it."
"Who thinks like that?" Shiori stared at Natsumi's face, completely at a loss.
This was around the age when girls were just starting to bloom—and when beauty anxiety hit hardest. Shiori had dealt with those insecurities at this age too, even if she wouldn't claim her own looks were anything exceptional.
"But—Natsumi, didn't you ask me yourself whether I thought you were pretty? Why are you running yourself down now?"
"You're trying to make me say it out loud, aren't you? Fine—I'm exactly what I look like: a coward who needs a 'skin suit' to fake confidence and feed her vanity! Happy now?!"
"Mrow~" Yimi reached over and gave her a small pat.
"I don't fully understand, but... isn't that the grown-up version of you?"
"You— [text corrupted]"
"Did someone say something?" Shiori laid her hand on Natsumi's head and gently ruffled her hair. "But Natsumi is naturally cute, you know. When all your attention goes into the disguise, you end up overlooking what's actually there. A girl who doesn't learn to bring out her own looks—that's just a waste."
Natsumi let out a cold laugh. "Oh, I know exactly what you're about to say. Once I've put in all that effort, you and your friends will whisper 'her ugliness has nothing to do with the makeup'—this is all payback for taking your little sister, isn't it."
She snatched up the fur ball. "And a shame for you—your little sister has already been turned into a cat forever!"
"Mrow."
"..." Shiori almost fell for it.
She stood, took the protesting little ball of fur from Natsumi's grip, and turned as if she were going to walk away without another word—then deliberately pressed a finger to her cheek, playing at just having thought of something: "Besides—I was thinking: since Natsumi isn't confident in herself right now and can't seem to change back to that other look, why not try dressing up the real you instead? Oh, and this building is under construction, isn't it? Workers will probably be coming through soon..."
"..."
She looked down at the round furball in her arms, claws quietly emerging, and continued: "I wonder if Ratatoskr is serving snacks and tea to all visitors today?"
"Stooping to threats... truly shameless, Itsuka Shiori..."
Whether it was Shiori's imagination or not, Natsumi seemed to radiate even more hostility toward her now than she had in the morning, right at the moment she'd kidnapped Yimi.
Natsumi's appearance was objectively quite cute—at least Shiori genuinely didn't think she herself had been anywhere near as cute at that age. She didn't know the full story of what Natsumi had been through, but if she could get her into a pretty dress and let her see herself properly in a mirror, surely the inferiority complex would dissolve on its own.
That was Shiori's theory—but as it turned out, the moment Natsumi was positioned in front of a mirror and a makeover was about to begin, she went completely still.
Part of it was her mother's constant put-downs. Part of it was the real, lived experience of not being accepted when she first appeared.
In Natsumi's own memory of herself, she really was a disaster—unkempt, untouched hair; skin with no color from malnutrition; the habitual slouch that her intense self-consciousness had bent into her posture, making her look like a dejected little beggar. [text corrupted]
But the person in the mirror looked nothing like that.
Natsumi stared for a moment before remembering that mirrors don't have beauty filters.
The face inside was still her own—almost nothing had changed. But her skin had a touch of color; her hair had become soft and smooth; tiny, almost imperceptible differences around her eyes and the shade of her lips suggested that the 'malnutrition' had been transferred somewhere else.
Just that. Only that. And yet—
Incredibly cute.
Her appearance had barely changed, yet somehow she had inexplicably become more appealing. Why? How?
When Shiori had said she was cute, Natsumi had only been able to interpret it as mocking sarcasm—because that was how she'd been received her entire life, until she'd come to believe herself that she was something repulsive and dirty.
Natsumi sat in wordless silence as Shiori applied her makeup, but what her eyes were truly fixed on was her own bare face in the mirror.
Her gaze drifted sideways to where Yimi was helping herself to cake. She roughly pieced together what must have happened.
Had that warm 'sunlight' done this for her? The 'Lamp Genie' was real after all.
So... so all she had been missing was just that one small change?
She couldn't make sense of it... she really had gotten prettier—exactly as the child had said. She genuinely had.
The little cat was in an excellent mood—so excellent that she had forgotten she was technically in Shiori's territory. She sat in a chair, swinging her feet that didn't quite reach the floor.
Holy Corpse, fully fused. Spiritual power, recovering rapidly. She estimated a full recharge in roughly a day. She might not be able to feel any earth-shattering transformation—but she was now completely confident she was ready to challenge the First Spirit.
"Yimi, come here a moment." Shiori finished Natsumi's makeup and beckoned.
It was a little presumptuous, but Shiori wanted to try doing light makeup on this elementary-school-aged girl—she had always loved putting makeup on dolls when she was young.
Yimi took small, cautious steps over, ready at any moment to bolt if Shiori made any movement that looked remotely like a sealing attempt.
"Hold still a moment..." Shiori raised an open compact of foundation toward the soft, baby-fat cheek.
"Mrow?"
Yimi looked down, opened her mouth a tiny crack, and took a small exploratory bite.
"..."
Shiori immediately abandoned all thought of doing Yimi's makeup.
"She's supposed to let you do her makeup but she's just playing with it on her own." Kotori stood in the doorway, completely at a loss, clutching her thick book.
"No matter how much she wants to take care of others, little Shi is still a young girl herself." Reine gently reminded Kotori.
Natsumi sat without a word—unable to reconcile what she was seeing with everything she'd been told her whole life, her brain had simply shut thinking down for a moment.
Yimi, for her part, was not at all pleased about being fed something unclean. She walked straight past Kotori and out the door without a word.
She was going back to investigate exactly what had changed—and then she was going to go fight the First Spirit.
Heading down the corridor, she nearly walked straight into a blond, handsome young man passing by. The little cat stopped dead and stared at him.
He looked familiar. He resembled the man with the blue rabbit Stand from the previous world.
Kannazuki Kyouhei, being stared at, paused in puzzlement. "What is it? Do you want to stomp on my face with those little shoes?"
The little cat's mouth formed a perfect O. She raised a hand and pointed at him in shock: "It's you!"
The blond man who looked like he could summon a blue rabbit Stand—but the voice. The voice gave him away. The dinosaur. Diego!
He had followed her all the way to this world! System 0.0 had been right: leaving loose ends always came back to bite you.